We rice by closing borders

By: Chuks .Chinyere(jj)

I hear people talking about how rash a decision it is to outrightly close the Nigerian-Benin border in a bid to help the locally produced rice sell.

“The government should have increased the import duty on foreign rice to inflate the price in the consumer market, subsidise the price of the locally produced rice so as to make it very attractive for Nigerians to buy, that way…”

I’m sorry sir but I disagree with you. Not that I believe your opinions to be wrong o, it’s just that I’m a Buharist and I’m obligated to think any criticism, constructive or otherwise, of any of the Buhari Administration’s policy, is erroneous and to be blatantly disagreed with. If you knew so much, better than the President and members of his economic team, why are you not the President yourself? With all the sense you have, you’re arguing at a newspaper stand.

“We rise by lifting others” is a working policy for the patient dog that’s always waiting to crack bones after “sharp dawgs” who you call criminally impatient and over-ambitious are making fast money and riding fast cars.

Off-topic, if you’re considering making this fast money, like Mompha and Co, try local, it pays way faster, there might be grave consequences but don’t border, if the price of one derica of local rice with sticks and stones can compete with the dollar exchange rate, there’s nothing God cannot do.

I understand that a bag of local rice which used to sell at N9,000 naira is gallivanting around N20,000 per bag now, while the foreign rice is priced closer to N30,000 naira per bag … way more than it ever was. Look on the bright side though: at least local rice tastes better than oyinbo rice, and it’s more nutritious. If you cook it with firewood, make sure you blow the fire with you mouth o. You will enjoy the rice very well. You just have to overlook the occasional coal tar your teeth will encounter every now and then. Be happy you’re buying Nigerian and helping Nigeria grow.

There might be too much sand in the local rice, but how does the average Nigerian youth who is lazy learn the importance of hard work if we keep feeding them with the type of rice they get to wash once and cook, without hassles? Can you believe there are brands of foreign rice you can cook right away without even washing first? God forbid that our government of ostentatiously high integrity continues to indulge that kind of laxity. This is why they have given us this local rice which we will have to wash several times before cooking.

Yes, no matter how many times you wash the rice there’ll still be some sand and stones, e get why: We have to learn that, no matter how much hard work you put into anything, there is still work yet to be done. Perfection is a continuous process.

You think President Buhari does not have sense? Baba knows what he’s doing.

We have to be grateful for what we have and be patient for when the big blessings will reach our hands because this life nah turn by turn. Se bi before the closed border, the foreign rice importers were the ones cashing out and making big money and buying big cars? Today, some friends of the government on hearing that they will soon close the border, went to colonise the production and distribution of local rice. They didn’t bother to invest in the process to make the product competitive as that’d be a waste of time and resources.

Trying to make a product good enough so that it can sell itself is for a target market that’s got a choice. When you rest assured that your family members in position are working to criminalise any possible competitive option over your product, is your own not to just start singing, “All things are working for my good; it’s intentional!”?

See eh, to make it in this country, just know the right people because it’s not by he that hustled or he that worked hard, it’s by the government that “closeth borders”.