Wikileaks, polit(r)ic(k)s and GMOs – Part 3

We were also told that the Federal Ministry of Environment may become the regulatory agency for biosafety guidelines if approved. (Comment:

We understand the ministry is not enthusiastic about biotechnology.)”

This insidious behaviour is not constrained to Nigeria or Africa. In 2007 as a result of French efforts to ban a Monsanto GM corn variety, a leaked cable shows Craig Stapleton, former Ambassador to France under the Bush administration, asking Washington to punish the EU countries that did not support the use of GM crops, here is an excerpt.

“Country team Paris recommends that we calibrate a target retaliation list that causes some pain across the EU since this is a collective responsibility, but that also focuses in part on the worst culprits. Moving to retaliation will make clear that the current path has real costs to EU interests and could help strengthen European pro-biotech voices.”

So, what can we infer from the above?

The bio-technology/GMO push is not originated by Nigerians for Nigerians, but is rather a push by American corporations in partnership with the U.S. government whilst using our journalists and legislators as tools and the face for this push.

The bio-technology/GMO push is not a harmless “save the world tripe” or Altruistic. It is being pushed vigorously all over Africa and Europe by foreign interests.

Several Nigerian “Authorities” have been trained by these organisations to push their agenda over and beyond the interest of the Nigerian nation and citizen. Such conflict of interest removes objectivity and national interest concerns from the discourse as seen with the former Minister of Agriculture, Dr. (Akinwumi) Adesina, a former Rockefeller employee (Rockefeller and AGRA are huge advocates of GM technology).

This is also evident where would be regulators appointed to protect the Nigerian citizen and environment have come out in the media as spokespeople and defenders for these corporations.

The bio-technology/GMO push is not about climate change or helping Nigeria economically. It is about creating a monopoly through dependency whilst controlling the food system and supply of our most staple foods.

The last time this many “PhDs” were in Nigeria telling us to embrace a foreign concept like this, they were selling the structural adjustment programme, and with it came the massive devaluation of the national currency, collapse of governmental due process and credibility, huge disparities in income distribution, the destruction of the economy’s manufacturing base and decimation of the progressive middle classes. In other words, the mess we are dealing with today.

As we look at the fuel queues that plague us today, one must wonder whose idea was it to trade off independently refining our crude for importing aside from health and environmental consequences, This trajectory would lead to our farmers queuing up for imported seeds and chemicals to farm, even worse expose our farmers and environment to toxic chemicals and expensive agricultural inputs which as seen in Burkina Faso would reduce our agricultural yield even further.

A nation that trades independence for convenience, quite frankly, deserves neither.

•Concluded.

• Rhodes-Vivour wrote via prv@spatialtectonics.com