Obasanjo Cries Out Over Increasing Cost Of Diesel

Obasanjo made this statement at the Southwest Fish Farmer’s Congress held at the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL) Auditorium, Abeokuta, Ogun State, on Tuesday.

A press release by Kehinde Akinyemi, special assistant on media to the former president, indicated that the programme which was convened by Obasanjo through Steve Okeleji, consultant on aquaculture, had delegates drawn from various fish farmers’ associations in the region.

He maintained that the situation is worrisome and taking tolls on the farmers using diesel as a quick intervention for pressing energy issues.

He said, “If we don’t come together as an Association, nationally, we will sink individually. If we come together, we will swim and survive together. And while we are working on coming together, I thought that the situation has arisen whereby we have to do something urgently.

“oThe price of diesel has gone sky high because the management of this country is not what it should be. And it is as simple as that. I am already sweating and if the situation does not go down, anybody that is using diesel, I don’t know your calculation, my calculation is that I cannot produce a kilo of fish with less than N1400. Thats about what it cost as at today.

“So if I sell my fish around N1400 I cannot make profit.”

Obasanjo while stressing the need for the meeting, said the fish farming industry is in dire straits, and if urgent and collectively attention were not given farmers in fish farming will completely go bankrupt.

“If there is no change, some will go bankrupt and if that happens, Nigerians will continue to eat fish, but, it will be out of reach. And people will be producing fish outside Nigeria and they will be dumping it here.

“That means you will go jobless, you will go poor, you will go indigent, so what do we do; come together”, he added.

He noted that the success of the congress from the Southwest region would determine the move to other parts of the country’s region.