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By Chinyere Anyanwu, [email protected]
Hunger is a global problem but the dimension it has assumed in Nigeria in the eight years of outgone President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration is mind boggling. It became an issue with the consistent rise in food prices that now makes it difficult for average and low income families to afford at least two meals a day.
Prior to 2015 when the administration came to power, cost of living was largely affordable to the vast majority of Nigerian households e but within Buhari’s tenure, the list of food items which prices were affordable are now unreachable to the common man, has grown longer.
For instance, staples like bread, a basic in every Nigerian home, went from being the common man’s food to becoming a scarce commodity on the breakfast tables.
A family size loaf of bread that sold for N250 before 2015 is now selling for N1,200. A 50kg bag of local rice that sold for between N6,000 and N7,000 now sells for N34,000 while imported rice which was going for N8,000 now sells for between N36,000 and N38,000. Cooking gas changed from N70 to N900 per kilogramme. A 5litre gallon of kerosene changed from N400 to N4,800. The prices of poultry products also went through the roof as a 10kg carton of frozen chicken that sold for around N10,000 now sells for about N26,000.
The high food prices and rising cost of living can be traced to the underperformance of the agricultural sector of the country under the administration’s watch, fraught with huge challenges, including insecurity and high cost of agricultural pinput. During Buhari’s tenure, agriculture became an endangered sector owing to insecurity, as it became practically impossible for farmers and agribusiness practitioners to carry on their activities. Herdsmen and insurgents’ attacks on farmers and farmlands took a frightening dimension. In food basket states like Benue, Plateau, killings by armed Fulani herdsmen on farming settlements have claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and displaced millions internally. The Benue State governor, Samuel Ortom for instance, had lamented that, “Fulani herdsmen attacks on my people in the last couple of years have caused a devastating humanitarian crisis resulting in the killing of over 6,000 Benue people and the displacement of about two million others with many living in IDP camps.”
According to him, “in all of these the President Muhammadu Buhari administration did little to check the activities of the armed herders who became emboldened by the government’s inaction.”
The administration’s decision to close land borders with its neighbours – Benin Republic, Niger and Cameroon – to check smuggling of rice, poultry products, among other food products, was a double-pronged policy, which was taken with the intent of improving local production of local food products, especially rice. The policy, however, did not achieve its desired goal as the smuggling of rice did not cease and no reduction in the price of locally produced rice was attained.
On August 13, 2019, Buhari’s government embarked on a ban on forex for importation of food into the country, its aim being to improve agricultural production and ensure the attainment of full food security in the country.
An analyst, Mr. Collins Carnice, reacting to the policy, had noted that, “he started with a wrong policy of no importation when he knows we can’t survive without foreign products. He should have settled agricultural adjustment and infrastructural development to be sure we can produce what we need most before adopting his policies of domestic product consumption.”
The administration undertook the Anchor Borrowers Programme (ABP), which was launched on November 17, 2015. It was aimed at providing agriculture loans to farmers at a single digit interest rate of 9 per cent. Under the programme, farmers in different value chains received a boost to their farming activities, including 5,814 rice farmers who were presented with various farm inputs under ABP for the 2019 dry season rice farming in Plateau State.
Last year, the president had stated that, “the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme is expected to catalyse the agricultural productive base of the nation, which is a major part of our economic plan to uplift the economy, create jobs, reduce reliance on imported food and industrial raw materials, and conserve foreign exchange. In the implementation of the programme, adoption of high-yielding seedlings, quality inputs and best farming practices were essential features.”
Stakeholders have, however, insisted that the beneficiaries of some government agricultural policies were “political farmers,” while the real farmers’ associations were usually not consulted when such policies were made.
Buhari’s government, on May 21, 2019, approved what it termed the Rural Grazing Area (RUGA) settlement scheme aimed at settling herdsmen in locations across the country where they could do their cattle business in dedicated and enclosed spaces with facilities provided for ease of the business.
The programme was, however, viewed with distrust and scepticism, giving rise to heightened call for its termination from the greater percentage of the people. The scheme was, however, dead on arrival owing to its rejection by most state governments, who refused to submit their lands for the project, as well as other stakeholders in the agriculture sector.
Despite government’s assurances that the programme was for the good of all stakeholders and the public at large, it did not succeed in dousing the tension raised by the programme. It was eventually suspended on July 3, 2019, a move that was hailed by many as a step in the right direction.
The Buhari administration made efforts to position the country among the comity of nations that are growing their economies through agricultural produce exports. One of those efforts was in the export of yam tubers to America and Europe, which was flagged off on June 29.
Unfortunately, however, that attempt did not yield desired result as the consignment exported to the US was rejected for not meeting standard.
Last January, the Buhari government launched the Abuja Rice Paddy Pyramids, a joint project of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)/Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN).
During the unveiling ceremony, the president said: “Today, rice production in Nigeria has increased to over 7.5 million metric tonnes annually. Prior to the introduction of APB, the average production in Nigeria between 1999 to 2015 was less than four metric tonnes annually.
““Fellow Nigerians, our gathering here today, is no doubt a testament to the fact that the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme is working. Indeed, these sky-high pyramids which we are gathered here to commission are part of our commitment at achieving national food security and economic diversification through home-grown policies targeted at securing food for all Nigerians.”
However, speaking on the project, the nation’s opposition party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), said, “the unveiling of bogus rice pyramids in Abuja, was nothing but, ‘pyramids of lies’.”
Reacting to the Buhari administration’s performance in the agriculture sector, the National President of All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), Ibrahim Kabir, said, “the outgoing administration is responsible for putting Agriculture on the front banner in Nigeria through its Agriculture Promotion Policy (APP) alias Green Alternative which the CBN bought into and evolved the Anchor Borrower Programme (ABP). Through the ABP, the government impacted some value chains like rice, maize and others.
“Nigeria has attained some measure of sufficiency in the rice value chain but a weak naira has affected the gains from translating to prosperity.”
He, however, stated that, “the Buhari administration put agriculture on the front burner by enacting the above policies but failed to put the right people to drive them leading to a colossal waste of direly needed resources.”
An Ogun State-based farmer, Amaka Chukwudum-Daniels, the CEO of Amicable Mondiale Farms, speaking on the impact of the outgone administration on the agriculture sector, said, “I did not benefit from the administration in doing my business. All its investments in the sector hardly reached the real farmers.”
