Many people would have been staggered to hear Godwin Emefiele, governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), say that Nigeria spent a stupendous amount of $1.68 billion on food imports between January and September 2021. Yes, you read it correctly. There is no typo here. Within nine months, Nigeria expended so much money to buy foreign food. Our exotic appetite for imported food is unquenchable. That is probably why Nigeria held for decades the ignoble title of “a nation of extraordinary consumers of imported food.”
It is quite distressing that while Nigeria loves to spend big money on foreign food, it makes relatively little effort to produce sufficient food to feed the population. There lies Nigeria’s problem. A country that spends billions on foreign food but produces little to feed its population is an imprudent country. It reflects the attributes of a prodigal son.
The notion that Nigeria spent so much money on food importation within a short period is not really a major headline news. The worry is that the trend has persisted. The tragedy really is that Nigeria is capable of producing the same food products it imports to satisfy the outlandish appetite of the larger population. Yet no one in government has seen reason to take drastic action to curtail unnecessary consumption of foreign food.
Central Bank Governor Emefiele said Nigeria has the capacity to produce sufficient food to feed its population. He said: “We believe that Nigeria can feed itself; Nigeria can produce what to eat. Everything needs to be done for us to move away from a situation where everything is imported.”
That is recitation of what everyone knows. The sentiment is widespread in the larger community.
The more concerning question that Emefiele must address is: To what extent have the banks and other private sector businesses stepped up to support small, medium and large-scale businesses, including youth looking for opportunities to start their own agro-allied enterprises? Agriculture at any level cannot be practised in a vacuum. It must be encouraged and supported through provision of land, finance, farming tools and equipment, and high-yield crops to enhance food production.
Nigeria must get its priorities right. It has the labour. It has arable land for agriculture. It has the resources to make agriculture attractive to people of all ages. It has the finances to support and encourage youth to engage in productive farming. Despite all these strengths, what Nigeria lacks is a proactive and committed policy to transform dreams, theories and principles into performances and achievements, all of which should be intended to promote and sustain a culture of active agriculture.
Public participation in farming is not an idea the government should preach persistently and fanatically through television and radio jingles. It is not a sentiment to be disseminated through newspaper and news magazine articles. No matter how good ideas are, if they are not upgraded to the platform of practical application that will demonstrate to people the real benefits of farming, surely, those ideas will never fly with citizens who are already sceptical of a government that promises a lot but has delivered little or nothing in the past seven years.
Emefiele suggested some ideas that should help to transform Nigeria’s current position as a major food importer to a country that produces food for internal consumption and possibly for export purposes. He said: “We need to get to a stage where we bring our manufacturing industries back to life again. For us to say that there is sustainable, inclusive growth in the country, we, as banks, working with government, must do everything possible to diversify the Nigerian economy…We have to do everything possible to reduce the rate of unemployment in the country. We will do everything possible to reduce the rate of poverty in our country.”
In September 2021, the CBN noted the best way to grow a nation’s economy is to reduce import of foreign goods, increase investment in agriculture and expand channels through which the country receives foreign exchange.
Public concerns about Nigeria’s rising expenditure on food imports and the high cost of servicing the nation’s appetite for foreign food had been expressed more than 10 years ago. For example, on May 23, 2011, President Goodluck Jonathan talked about his government’s grand plan to stop importation of rice, sugar and fertilisers by 2015. At that time, he said: “By the end of four years, I believe that Nigeria has no business importing rice. Nobody will come to me with a briefcase and say to me he wants to import fertiliser. We have vast land, and yet we import all these essential goods.”
That was a lofty plan never attempted, never implemented and never achieved. Between that time and now, all suggestions that Nigeria should cut its food import bill have remained illusory. The amount of money Nigeria spends on import of food products has continued to balloon.
Minister of Agriculture during Jonathan’s government, Akinwumi Adesina, provided detailed analysis of Nigeria’s food import expenses over a period of more than 10 years. He presented specific figures in an address he delivered in Ibadan in mid-August 2011. In that lecture, Adesina said: “In 2010 alone, Nigeria spent N635 billion on import of wheat, N356 billion on import of rice, N217 billion on sugar importation and, despite the huge marine resources, spent N97 billion importing fish. This is not fiscally, economically or politically sustainable. Nigeria is eating beyond its means. While we all smile as we eat rice every day, Nigerian rice farmers cry as the imports undermine domestic production.”
This is where national leadership must be held blameworthy. A country that guzzles its foreign exchange earnings on food imports is not only profligate in spending but also careless, thoughtless and insensitive to the needs of future generations. It is worthless to advocate the lifestyle of Epicureans who promote continuous eating, drinking and merrymaking on the basis that tomorrow we shall be no more. While it may sound logical to argue that tomorrow is unpredictable and, therefore, should not be planned for, it is also equally unwise and illogical for anyone to spend all of their earnings in one day.
No country can make progress or advance economically without carefully articulating and mapping out plans to create a better and sustainable future for its citizens, as well as for generations yet to be born.
A country that places its faith on imported food is laying the foundation for future food insecurity. It is not a justifiable or admirable habit. Such a practice has the potential to deplete the country’s limited foreign exchange reserves. Living on imported food will discourage people from farming. It will endorse lavish lifestyle and stimulate unsustainable tastes. It will elevate consumption of foreign goods as a model lifestyle to which everyone should aspire.
No country can fund or live endlessly on high-priced foreign food that it can ill afford in an increasingly challenging global economy. Above all, relying on imported food will most certainly belittle the value of locally grown food products.