FORMER president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, has expressed worries over high cost of diesel, saying the development has adverse effect on his fish business.
He spoke at his residence in Abeokuta, on Tuesday, during a congress of the South-West Fish Farmers Price Sustainability Group, noting that fish farmers in the country might run out of business due to daily increase in prices of fish feeds and cost of diesel.
Obasanjo said, “The current price of diesel at N800 per litre, production of a kilogramme of fish is N1,400. In order to make very marginal profit, farmers can’t sell less than N1,500 as anything short of that amounts to outright loss.
“The price of diesel has gone high because the management of this country is not what it should be. “And it is as simple as that. Then, what will happen is that, particularly 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.
“Fish production will be out of reach and then, people will be producing fish outside Nigeria and be dumping it here. And you will go jobless, poor and indigent. So, what do we have to do? 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.”
Obasanjo said he is sweating because of high cost of diesel.