The stop-gap measures to cushion the effects of surging cost of living have elicited some relief and instantaneous misgivings alike. Before now, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) had warned of impending food crisis in 2024 and listed Nigeria as one of the 18 hunger hotspots across the globe. As predicted, acute food shortage has been biting hard in the country since 2023. Thus, the federal government officially approved the opening of land and sea borders for duty-free importation of staple food items, maize, husked brown rice and wheat, for the next 150 days.
And to refill the depleted strategic grain reserves, 250,000 metric tonnes of maize and wheat, respectively, would be imported, too. However, no less a personality than Akinwumi Adesina, the president of the African Development Bank and Nigeria’s former Minister of Agriculture, took exception took to the large-scale food importation as, according to him, “Nigeria risks destroying the country’s agriculture sector”, which the country parades enormous potential of feeding itself. Expressing his concern for the fiscal implications, Prof. Pat Utomi observed that “We will borrow to buy imported food.
So we not only risk unsustainable food provision strategy but further compounding of our looming debt crisis.” Beyond these thoughtful reservations, my fears are hinged on three enduring characters of the Nigerian state: corruption, vested interest and state capture. It is a reminiscent of what happened under former President Shehu Shagari (1979-1983) when the country faced a similar fate. Despite crude oil windfall, the country failed to maximize the gains to ensure food security for its growing population, estimated at roughly 73 million by 1980. Specifically, the nation could not meet up with the demand for rice, which tripled within the last six months of 1980. It was calculated in the early life of Shagari’s administration that about one million metric tonnes of rice was needed annually while the domestic production stood at 700,000 metric tonnes. The Shagari-led federal government had to introduce a controlled import licensing system to fill the supply gap of 300,000 metric tonnes and also protected domestic farmers from external unfair competition.
The New York Times of January 18, 1981, wrote that “Under a United States agreement to provide technical assistance to Nigerian agriculture, American rice-growing and milling companies would invest in new mills and farm projects here, increasing Nigerian rice production, in exchange for guaranteed imports of 250,000 metric tonnes of American rice.” President Shagari relied on this to shore up his popularity for a second-term election in 1983. To supervise the programme, a presidential task force on rice importation was constituted and headed by Shagari’s Man Friday, brother-in-law, and Minister of Transport, Alhaji Umaru Dikko. Dikko’s political career started as a commissioner in the then North Central State that comprised Katsina and Zaria provinces. He served as secretary of the committee appointed by the last governor of northern Nigeria, Gen. Hassan Usman Katsina, to unite the northerners after the 1966 coup. But what gave him national name-recognition was his fiery outspokenness during the 1977/1978 Constituent Assembly. Hence, when he failed to a seat in the Senate in 1979, having been ousted by a relatively unknown Ibrahim Barau of Peoples Redemption Party (PRP), he became Shagari’s campaign manager in the 1979 presidential election.
With Shagari’s victory, Dikko was appointed the Minister of Transport. As a powerful minister, his sphere of influence extended beyond his ministry. And in trying to justify the assignment of the task force on rice importation, he was quoted as saying, “As long as we are in government, we will leave no stone unturned to ensure that there is sufficient food in Nigeria and nobody will eat from dustbin.” Dikko became a target of vicious attacks from the South-West controlled press (the strong base of the opposition Unity Party of Nigeria) that twisted his statement thus: “there was no hunger in the land because no one as yet was eating from dustbins.” President Shagari had to prevail on Chief MKO Abiola to open the National Concord newspaper for counter-balancing of the press war. Back to the rice importation, Dikko was accused of hijacking the entire process. Allegations of corruption were rife.
Party chieftains who benefited from the import license were accused of contriving artificial scarcity, which logically brought about price increases. At the end, the programme was trailed by scandals. Millions of dollars was allegedly squandered by Dikko when the exchange rate of dollar to naira was less than one naira (N1). The clarion call today is for President Tinubu to avoid a repeat of such a scenario.
The cartels that usually hold government down on pecuniary considerations are digging in. The middlemen and contractor bourgeoisie who pose as party apparatchiks and financiers would want to make a kill from the intended temporary upswing. They would even want endless importation of rice as far as they enjoy governmental waivers. We must protect our currency from foreign exchange pressures and boost local production of food. In the words of Utomi, “What killed the cocoa, palm produce and groundnut exports in which Nigeria led the world at Independence? Poor trade policy manifested in exchange rates made naira income for cash crop farmers in the early 1980s unappealing.”
The fuel importation that put the nation into the present economic quagmire started this way. President Tinubu must watch out for vested interests of powerful influence peddlers with international networks in leading rice-producing countries. If Ibrahim Babangida, as head of state, could confess that he was held hostage by “those who staged the coup and those who put me here” (courtesy of an interview with the former governor of Ogun State, Olusegun Osoba), then it would be easier to fall victim of ‘cabal capture’ in a democratic setting. Mr. President should know that the buck stops at his desk and that Nigerians will hold him responsible, if this quick-fix policy fails, because the likes of Dikkos would run away like a fugitive on the day of reckoning.