Lauretta Onochie, former aide to the late President Muhammadu Buhari, has accused President Bola Tinubu of “betraying” the agricultural legacy of her former principal, warning that current reforms are plunging farmers into poverty while flooding the market with substandard imports.
In a post on X, Onochie lamented what she described as a reversal of Buhari’s food security gains, saying:
“Dear Baba, the man we worked hard for, to succeed you, believing he would continue serving Nigerians where you stopped, has let Nigerians down, big time. Our shops are filled with imported rotten food items. The worst is that one cannot find Nigerian ginger to buy in Nigeria.”
The former presidential aide recalled how Buhari’s administration championed local rice production, which she claimed lifted millions out of poverty.
“As President, we had millions of Nigerians working to produce rice. Many became millionaires and some were able to pay their way to Mecca for Hajj. Most of those rice farmers are now out of jobs because our borders are now open to substandard and adulterated food importation; essentially killing the agricultural sector,” she wrote.
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Onochie accused the Tinubu government of being more interested in “scrapping Buhari’s legacy” than consolidating on it.
“Your mantra was that we must grow what we eat and eat what we grow. Rather than concentrate on building on the progress you made, they are obsessed with scrapping your legacy. We won’t let them,” she declared.
She tagged Tinubu’s agricultural policy as “#Tinubugeria” — a mockery of Nigeria’s food security agenda — insisting Nigerians never asked for the reforms currently being implemented.
The post has already stirred heated reactions online, with many Nigerians debating whether Buhari’s agricultural policy was indeed a success or if Tinubu’s market-driven reforms are a necessary shift.