Why Food Prices May Still Rise – Buhari’s Ex-Aide

Dolapo Bright, a former Special Adviser on Agriculture to ex-President Muhammadu Buhari, says the minimal reduction in the prices of food commodities currently experienced in Nigeria is not sustainable.

The farmer attributed the temporary decline in the prices of grains to the importation intervention of the Federal Government last July.

Bright was a guest on Sunday’s edition of Inside Sources with Laolu Akande, a socio-political programme aired on Channels Television.

He said, “By December, onion was reaching ₦200, 000 to ₦300, 000. Now, onion is down.

” The reason onion price is down at this time is because the dry season harvest is out, and there are lots of people doing dry-season harvest production in Kano, in Sokoto, and in Kebbi – all of them are bringing out onions.

“So, the price of onions will come down, the price of tomatoes will come down, and the price of pepper will come down.

” But last week, the price of Ata rodo (pepper) is up again because we forgot about demand and supply. We are having problems with grains now in terms of price because the government imported grains from outside the country at zero duty, which, to me, is a disgrace. So many farmers are not happy about what is happening.

“The government is not looking at this, we are celebrating the importation of grains from other countries, and these countries support their farmers. Thailand supports rice farmers with $1.6bn every year in subsidies. Europe supports farmers generally, $34bn annually, even more than the United States”.

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He said the Nigerian government’s support for farmers has not translated into progress for the agriculture sector.

“Even our support is destroying the farmers. Let me give an example. Last year, the President said we are going to give fertilisers to farmers. We started planting now and will plant till June, and the government wants to give them fertilisers in July. And the fertilisers came in September. It’s too late”, he said.

“We must not jubilate, the price of food is still going to go up unless the president will continue to import food. The demand for food in Nigeria is high, with a population of over 200 million. We’ve got to produce every time, not once in a year, and the government must support the farmers because the support of farmers is critical to food security”.

Also, an analyst, Moheed Dahiru, agreed with Bright, saying Nigerians have not felt the impact of the government’s intervention in the agriculture sector. He said the government has jeopardised Nigeria’s food security with its reforms.

Dahiru said, “Nobody is feeling the impact, and it cannot be felt because there was a sharp rise in the prices of food commodities between May 29, 2023, and February this year (2025), way above the affordability threshold of the majority of the people of Nigeria.

” Even the implementation of the ₦70, 000 minimum wage has not helped to mitigate the problem of unaffordable food items for the majority of our people.

“There are some defective interventions in the government. What the government seeks to do by way of public reforms have ended up probably deforming our economy, and has jeopardised food security in the process”.

He regretted that the available food commodities in the market are unaffordable as the earnings of Nigerians have nosedived in the last two years.

Dahiru called for a concise policy for the country to guarantee food security.

Food and commodity inflation have skyrocketed as Nigerians battle what can be considered the worst cost-of-living crisis since the country’s independence over six decades ago.

According to data by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Nigeria’s food inflation rate in November 2024 was 39.93% on a year-on-year basis, from 32.84% recorded in November 2023.

However, with the rebasing of the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which measures the rate of change in prices of goods and services, the country’s food inflation rate was put at 26.08% for January 2025. Also, the headline inflation rate was rebased from 34.80% in December 2024 to 24.48% in January 2025.

The average prices of food commodities such as rice, yam flour, millet whole grain, corn flour, egg, milk, frozen chicken, among others, have jumped up in about two years.

Economic wizards have attributed the astronomic rise in food inflation to President Bola Tinubu’s twin policies of petrol subsidy removal and unification of the forex rates.

To stem food inflation, the Tinubu administration in July 2024 announced the suspension of customs duties on imported food items but the policy has reportedly not seen the light of the day due to bureaucratic bottlenecks.

Source: Channels TV