Ministerial nomination: It’s a lie, I didn’t reject offer – Ogbeh

The immediate past minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh has denied reports that he rejected offer for re-appointment.

This was made known when a delegation of the Idoma Development Forum, led by Dr. Jacob Okwori, paid him a visit on Saturday in Abuja, to seek clarifications on insinuations surrounding his non-reappointment as minister.

Chief Ogbeh debunked the insinuation, saying “there was no such thing that occurred. I never rejected Mr. President’s offer for re-appointment. No one approached me on behalf of Mr. President since we left office on 29th May and I never went to lobby anyone because I had a very good and smooth working relationship with Mr. President.

“It is complete falsehood and mischief for anyone to insinuate that I declined the offer of re-appointment,” he said.

He however, thanked Mr. President for giving him (Ogbeh) the chance to serve in the first place.

Earlier, the leader of the delegation had expressed dismay over information that Chief Ogbeh declined interest to be re-appointed into the Next Level administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.

“We, your kinsmen, were living witnesses to your outstanding performance as Minister for Agriculture and Rural Development between 2015 and 2019 when you worked assiduously to transform Nigeria into the world’s Agriculture Center and flood the global market with food of Nigerian origin.

“Within the period, one of Nigeria’s biggest businesses of FOREX namely rice alongside others were removed from the list of food import items to save about N21b, according to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in 2018.

“Agriculture export grew by 77.3%, from N170b in 2017 to N270b in 2018 among others,” he said.