About one million rice paddies stacked as pyramids and unveiled by President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday during an event in Abuja are not yet processed, SaharaReporters has gathered.
Buhari unveiled the rice pyramids at an event attended by government officials including the Central Bank of Nigeria Governor, Godwin Emefiele.
The Central Bank of Nigeria had said that the rice pyramids were built with one million bags of rice planted and harvested from states across the country under its Anchor Borrowers’ Programme.
Sources told SaharaReporters that most of the rice bags of rice were recovered from farmers, who couldn’t pay back loans collected from the CBN.
“Built with one million bags of rice, most paddies that formed the pyramids were recovered from farmers in lieu of cash to pay back for the loans they collected from CBN.
“Largely inedible unprocessed rice paddies that CBN forced farmers who didn’t pay up on anchor-borrower loans,” the source said.
The CBN’s Anchor Borrowers’ Programme started in November 2015 with the goal of providing aid to farmers and influencing the value chain of various commodities in Nigeria.
