Findings by ZENITHBLOG.com shows that the special adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on media and publicity, Garba Shehu, may have lied when he revealed that Nigeria is the second largest producer of rice in the world on February 19.
The list produced in September 2016 shows that Nigeria is not close to the first 10 world producers of rice.
Speaking at a special interactive session with the youths organised by Citizens Support for Good Governance in Nigeria (SGGN) in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital city recently, Shehu further called on Nigerians to be patient with the government of President Buhari as the administration was doing more to shore up the economy.
“But as I speak to you now, Nigeria just achieved the record of the second largest producer of rice in the world.
“The rice revolution just started a year ago. Some of you from Nasarawa know the kind of things going on there.
“A newspaper did an investigation in Kebbi and they found out that there were 48,000 new millionaires in Kebbi state alone last year for growing rice,” he had said later adding that he got the report from the Cable News Network (CNN).
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But a private investigation by ZENITHBLOG.com shows that Nigeria is not even among the first 10 producers of rice in the world.
A report released in September 2016 by World Atlas puts the Asian continent as dominating the list of major rice producers in the world with India topping. Other countries, according to their rating from second to 10 positions respectively include: China, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Thailand, Vietnam, Burma, Phillipines, Cambodian and Pakistan.
List of the top 10 rice producers in the world as at September 2016.
Logically, it would be difficult for Nigeria to become the second largest rice producer in the world in just three months by-passing the other nine that have remained tops over the years.
The World Atlas report however agrees that Nigeria, Niger and Tanzania are some of the African countries exhibiting a positive disposition to the consumption of rice and thus maybe expanding its farming.
Ventures Africa also believes that Shehu lied in his comment.
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“The closest semblance to truth in Garba Shehu’s statement is that Nigeria is the second largest importer of rice in Sub-saharan Africa.
“The ranking was released by the United States Department of Agriculture. A statement from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in December 2016 puts Nigeria as the largest importer of rice in the world. So what branch of CNN provided Mr Shehu his data?”
In February, 2017, Audu Ogbe, the minister in charge of Nigeria’s Agriculture and Rural Development, revealed that the country was targeting seven million tonnes of rice 2018.
He did not state Nigeria’s actual position on the list.
“I think we have attained the level of being one of the largest producers of rice, even though many people are still in doubt about that.
“So, for those who say it is not true, I think they need to take another look. I have been in Vietnam, the same kind of rice plantation you see there is what you see in Nigeria.
“The only thing we need to add is the milling capacity, which we are increasing,” he said while attributing the current hike in price of rice to the increase in the people’s demand for the product as, according to him, the country is feeding more than 193 million citizens as well as 100 million others in West and North Africa.
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The states currently producing rice in Nigeria, according to Chief Ogbeh, include: Adamawa, Kebbi, Kano, Ebonyi, Katsina, Jigawa, Taraba, Anambra, Enugu and Benue.
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