Cross River State Governor, Ben Ayade, has expressed concern over shortage of raw materials to feed the newly commissioned 66,500 tonnes Ogoja Rice Mill.

Ayade, who expressed concern on Saturday during the Northern Festival (NORTHFEST) in Ogoja, said he had a dream of building a rice mill for his people so that they would stop taking rice to other states to mill.

He said: “Today, I have fulfilled that dream. The biggest challenge we have now is that the capacity of the rice mill is much bigger than the raw materials we have.

“How do we explain that I have a rice mill with 66,500 tonnes capacity in terms of storage and you need to have that quantity before you switch on the engine, yet I cannot get 3,000 tonnes?”

He charged the people, especially youths, to go into rice farming since the rice mill is ever ready to off-take their produce.

“If you come to Ogoja and Yala, you have this massive rice mill, which is the biggest and the only vitamised rice mill in Africa. Can you imagine that if everyone of us here had one hectare of rice farm, this rice mill will not be lying prostrate. Now, we go as far as Taraba State to buy rice paddy, because the mill is working but there is no rice to mill.”

On NorthFest, Ayade urged the state House of Assembly members from the Northern part of the state to sponsor a bill to give legal backing to it to ensure its sustainability after he leaves office as governor.