Business magnate, Aliko Dangote is currently a subject of discussion on social media, as the Federal Government is reportedly considering banning the importation of milk.
The controversy: The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele was quoted to have said the Federal Government would soon put restrictions on the importation of milk, and other dairy products in the country.
Emefiele reportedly made this known on Tuesday, July 23, 2019, while addressing newsmen after the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting in Abuja.
[READ MORE: Aliko Dangote is the only African among the world’s 100 richest people]
While lamenting that the importation of milk stood between $1.2 billion dollars and $1.5 billion dollars annually, Emefiele said that he was convinced that milk was one of the products that could be produced in this country, hence there would not be a need for importation.
The CBN later denied the claim and said it has no legal power to carry out such an act. The apex bank’s denial, however, came after Emefiele’s disclosure.
Dangote’s involvement: Dangote had reportedly disclosed his plans to invest $800 million in dairy production in Nigeria. According to the report, the plan is part of Dangote’s diversification plans into the Nigerian agricultural sector.
[READ ALSO: Dangote gets African leaders’ support on health sector plan]
What Nigerians are saying: Since the news of the alleged restriction surfaced on the internet, Nigerians have taken to the social media to air their views, tagging the business magnate as an economic saboteur.
Below are the reactions from Nigerians.
Dangote is the biggest economic saboteur the world has ever known. But guess what? He didn’t create himself. Every Nigerian leader since 1999 including Governors enabled him. In serious countries, Antitrust laws would have sent him either to jail or out of business with fines.
— Mazi (@matthewamad) July 29, 2019
#Nigeria government has made Dangote to look as if he is the only businessman that knows how to do business, also with the best ideas in the country.
Govt / CBN are planning to ban milk, same week Dangote deviates into diary farming. That’s not a coincidence.#KenyanVsNigeria pic.twitter.com/9vmtBrzOfR
— Ayemojuba ??? (@ayemojubar) July 28, 2019
– I’m just gonna throw Aliko Dangote in the mix for some slaps. His underhanded technique is more economically damaging than good. Having the power and resources to manipulate a dead society doesn’t mean you have to. You need to be competitive than kill the competition.??♂️??
— Ferdinand. (@Burmese__Tyga) July 28, 2019
Look at me here thinking this CBN forex ban on milk imports did not make any sense right now when all I needed to see was this ??
Oligarchy at its finest – the Dangote story pic.twitter.com/mKEZ7jpTx2
— Dr. Anita Mudiaga (@fav_eyedoctor) July 28, 2019
Dangote’s business entity has single handedly monpolised every economic product. Thanks to the FG now. It’s like all businesses must have to compete against him standing next to the govt. Is that not a suicide mission business-wise? Yar’adua was the one president who tried to block him.
— Tolu Olumide (@olumide_tolu) July 28, 2019
If Dangote starts manufacturing cars today, there will be a “revolution” in the local car manufacturing industry.
Just kidding. The Nigerian Government will just ban car importation, Dangote won’t pay tax, he’d get interest-free loan from CBN. Arewa stays winning.
— Kelvin Odanz (@MrOdanz) July 28, 2019
Anytime Dangote wants to delve into any business in Nigeria, the Federal Govt announces a restrictive policy that makes it extremely difficult for other Nigerians in that line of business to operate as they should.
They did it with cement, flour and even tomato paste.— The Papi (@tawah89) July 28, 2019
[READ FURTHER: Aliko Dangote accompanies Buhari to see Trump]
It seems most of the comments are coming from poor knowledge of the facts as they were ie Dangote”s dairy intentions were announced last year or so and not just now as some posited.
It is also in bad light to say he is a threatening monopoly when the likes of Friesland, Dano etc have the capacity to have set up their farms years back but rather sat back just contented with importing as a fast way of making money just like a great number of Nigerians. we seem to shy away from real production in favor of merchandise business.
So my thoughts are, basically nothing stops anyone including the current milk importers from going into backward integration and I dear say that the CBN policy on restricting FX for milk importation is one of the best things that have happened in this country and a huge plus for the current Govt.
One can imagine the value chain that ordinarily would spring forth from this policy drive apart from savings in FX, we would have labour demand expand, technology transfer, export potentials, organic fertiliser inputs, feed business increased market, ancillary business boom etc.
Perhaps I should throw more light on this as the current backlash is claiming that there would be reduction of labour as a result of layoffs. The fact is that the backward integration would bring in additional labour whilst the current staff would remain as the milk produced would be used to service the existing rebagging lines(that ia what it is currently as they are not producing) and currently the staff of the milk re bagging companies would be needed to continue to rebag into their normal tins, sachets etc as they were doing before whilst the farms would now recruit labour for the different strata of the process flow ie farming, milking the cows, milk processing, cheese production, yoghurt and bagging for the rebagging companies that we currently have.
Then the value chain of course like what you have in the other productive sectors would come to be ie Local retailers, Equipment sellers, fabricators for the various equipment, Maitenance Engineers, whole sellers, meat processors, vet doctors, vet drugs, the possibility of exporting the product is also there and so FX earnings, the fertilizer business also benefits as the horns of cow and their dung are organic manures etc so one can go on and on
i think the real challenge is the dearth of communication when policies are thrown up for the generality of people to have a better understanding of what it entails as this would even be a bigger industry than what you currently have.
Also like abroad where we have natural liquid milk that you can drink becomes a norm in the country, the resultant effect is that dairy products would become more available at cheaper prices to the common man, recall also that animals reproduce and so the multiplier effect reduces our dependence on the imported cows which many do not know that we currently indulge in as they think they are just coming from the north whereas we are importing most of the cows we eat from neighbouring countries.
The only challenge i see here is communication communication communication
Dangote as an industrialist has done Nigeria more good than harm and has put us on the international map of producing countries whilst also ensuring that we are no longer only dependent on Oil, so it would be nice if we acknowledge the good things and refrain from commenting when we do not have the facts.
Thank you
May god continue to bless Alh Dangote with good health, We can’t continue to be importing what we can produce localy and also putting pressure on our naira, let us encourage those that have resources to set up factories in our country, that’s only way we can reduce crisis in Nigeria