By Ken Afor
Nigeria’s Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Mr. Abubakar Kyari, has hinted that the Federal Government may consider shutting down the borders if the current food crisis in the country persists.
The Minister made this statement on Friday in Abuja during an interface between President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s economic team and the Senate Committee on Banking, Insurance, and Other Financial Institutions.
At the meeting, which had the presence of the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Olayemi Cardoso, Minister of Finance, Olawale Edun, Minister of State for Budget and Economic Planning, Atiku Bagudu, among others, Mr. Kyari blamed the rise of food inflation on the porosity of the borders.
According to the Minister, many of the country’s agricultural products being smuggled out across these borders to neighboring countries, including Niger, Chad, Cameroon, and Togo, are not documented.
He, however, lamented that the country does not get returns on investment on key commodities such as soybean and sesame, which are being bought by foreign nationals.
He said, “So you find a lot of undocumented export being smuggled out across our porous borders into these neighbouring countries.
“A lot of investors, be it Indians, Chinese, Turkey, or Britain in the country, buy our crops that are sold outside like soybeans and sesame.
“They buy them at exorbitant prices just to earn foreign exchange when they go out there and sell them, but the bad thing about it is that most of this money is not repatriated to Nigeria.
“Exports is a good thing for us, but when it’s not repatriated, and when the government does not derive any income from it, then I’m sorry, that’s not a good sign”.
To ameliorate the effect of the current food crisis, the Minister noted that the federal government has put in place measures to boost food production with the aim of meeting the demand and supply gap for the citizens.
He asserted that drastic measures must be taken, even if they go against the monetary and fiscal policies set by the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Ministry of Finance.
“We have 70 million hectares available in Nigeria, but if we can secure the land and have farmers go back to the farm, I’m sure we can do it.
“If these economics continue, then you have to either seal up the border, which is against the ECOWAS issue or produce for all of West Africa and that’s the unfortunate thing,” he added.
TheNewDiplomat had earlier reported that further measures to be adopted by the Federal Government through the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security include the release of approximately 42,000 metric tonnes of grain, including maize, millet, and garri.
According to the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mr. Mohammed Idris, the Rice Millers Association of Nigeria has been instructed to release over 60,000 metric tonnes of rice to various markets without delay.
These directives aim to alleviate the impact of the increasing food prices in the markets. The minister expressed optimism that these measures would effectively address the current challenge in the coming weeks and months.
