Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigeria’s former president, has berated the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari over the high cost of diesel.
Obasanjo spoke on Tuesday in Abeokuta, Ogun State, during Southwest Fish Farmers’ Congress held at the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL).
The former president lamented that with the current price of diesel at N800 per litre, production of a kilogram of fish is now N1,400.
He said in order to make very marginal profit, the farmers could not sell less than N1,500 as anything short of that amounts to “outright loss.”
He said, “The price of diesel has gone high because the management of this country is not what it should to be. And it is as simple as that.”
Obasanjo added that what would happen was that, “those of us who have to use a bit of diesel in producing fish, we will completely go bankrupt, and when that happens, Nigerians will still have to eat fish.”
He decried that fish production would be out of reach and then, people would be producing fish outside Nigeria and be dumping it in the country.
Obasanjo stated that fish farmers would then go jobless, poor and indigent.
“So, what do we have to do? To come together…we want to sustain fish production and we must be able to take care of those who are going to eat and those of us who are producing,
“How many of you are using diesel in your production? Because I use diesel and I’m already sweating,” he lamented