By Isaac Aimurie, Henry Oqua and Nosa Agbonigiarhuoyi
Edo State Governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, has urged members of the Plantation Owners’ Forum of Nigeria (POFON) to increase the production of oil palm in order to take advantage of the global shortage resulting from the ban on export by some countries.
Obaseki gave the advice on Tuesday, May 18, 2022, when he received the executives and members of POFON who paid him a courtesy visit at Government House, Benin City, the State capital.
He projected that with the ban on export of oil palm by the big exporting countries because of global shortage; there will be a need for plantation owners to increase production to bridge the gap.
“A couple of days ago, we saw India as a country ban the export of wheat. Last week, Indonesia, Malaysia banned the export of oil palm. So even people we are buying from are saying ‘sorry, we can’t sell because we need to use this product ourselves. So what happens to us?’” The Governor queried.
He added: “We never developed our intellectual capacity to use and to sell to others. So we have double warnings where we don’t have enough money coming in, and because of the current global challenges, they are saying they won’t even sell. Nobody anticipated that there would be war in Ukraine, and there would be a backlash on the whole world, and this is coming at the back of Covid-19 with all the challenges that came as a result of the disruption of the world’s logistics system.”
Obaseki urged the plantation owners to escalate the urgency that is needed to address the issue of economic diversification and task politicians to reform the existing socio-economic structures to fully harness the resources in the country.
He stressed: “Whether we like it or not, the current Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) of Nigeria is being forced to change, and that will mean that our reliance on crude oil has not increased our global competitiveness. We have no choice but to change, you have to tell us politicians that we have come to the end of the road. We need to rethink and restructure.
“We have no choice, especially with the kind of demographics we have, than to just change strategy and change direction; and at the rate at which our population is growing, in another 25 years, we will be 400 million people. 25 years is not a long time, because from 1999 to 2022, we are almost 25 years old.
“Therefore, you can’t continue at this rate of investment to cope with the social challenges that will come as a result of not being able to invest; and you can’t invest at the rate we need to without trade.”
He reassured that his administration would sustain the collaboration with the plantation owners’ forum and urged them to share their experiences with governors of other States.
“For us in Edo, fortunately, we saw this coming, and we used the last five to six years to prepare ourselves for this transition that we are witnessing, but we are in a race against time because if we assume a decade for this change, it will hit us in less than a decade; because reading the news, and seeing what other countries are doing today as a result of the Ukrainian war to ensure food supply continuity, then it’s really scary and we cannot continue at this pace, we just need to go sprint.
Chairman of POFON, Mr. Emmanuel Ibru, commended Governor Obaseki for his support for plantation owners, and explained that the group was in Benin City to attend the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and POFON meeting which was held in the State.
He described Edo as an oil palm champion and number one stakeholder in Nigeria.
