By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Food inflation has continued its rise in Nigeria despite the promise by Muhammadu Buhari back in August last year that he is searching for solution to the pandemic of his fellow country men and women going hungry amid plenty in a fertile land.
Long before coronavirus disruptions began in April 2020, Nigerians had been finding it hard to make ends meet due to a combination of rising fuel pump price, high unemployment, low income, and corruption at all levels of leadership.
Data release by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed that food price index, which accounts for the bulk of the inflation basket, had risen to 16.0 per cent in August 2020 from 15.48 per cent in July.
Buhari said at the time that his administration was searching for solution to the rising prices of stable foods, which he blamed on middlemen who buy farm produce and resell at exorbitant rates.
He expressed hope that investment in the agro-allied sector by the private sector will slash the price of domestic production of farm inputs, especially fertilizer, create employment, and ease pressure on foreign reserves.
But food inflation rose to 22.95 per cent in March 2021, caused by wide-ranging price increases transport fares and across items such as cereals, yam, meat, fish, and fruits.
Below, a report by Bloomberg chronicles the ordeal poor Nigerians go through daily to put feed themselves and their families.
Stagnant earnings
Merchant Feyintola Bolaji, struggling with stagnant earnings and dwindling sales, is now being squeezed by the ever increasing prices demanded by her food suppliers, leading her to cut down on the amount she can put on her own family’s table.
Bolaji’s belt tightening is being shared by millions across Africa’s most populous nation.
Not long after the NBS disclosed that one in three people in the continent’s largest economy were unemployed March, it announced that food inflation had accelerated at the highest pace in 15 years, compounding the misery of many households.
“It is really bad, I can’t simply afford to give my children what they really need in terms of food,” said Bolaji, a mother of three in her 50s based in the southwestern city of Ibadan.
“I try to make them get the nutrients they need as growing children, but it is not enough,” she said, adding “I have had to cut down on meat and fish.”
Insurgency, unrest, and the stand of Buhari’s government on food imports in a nation where more than half the population lives on less than $2 a day are worsening food insecurity in the African country.
Meanwhile, the coronavirus pandemic has robbed 70 per cent of Nigerians of some form of income, according to a Covid-19 impact survey published by the NBS.
Soaring food costs have been in part blamed on a worsening conflict between farmers and herders in Nigeria’s agriculture belt that Buhari has struggled to quash.
The unrest, combined with the more than decade-long Boko Haram insurgency in the North East, a weakening currency and higher fuel prices have also contributed to rising food prices, according to SBM Intelligence, a Nigerian research firm.
The situation has also been exacerbated by import restrictions on certain staples, such as rice, that have remained in place despite Buhari reopening Nigeria’s land borders in December following a 16-month shutdown in an attempt to end rampant smuggling.
MAN calls for price control
Rising inflation has adversely affected the profitability of producers and is a major contributor to the low export penetration of made-in-Nigeria goods in the international market, the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) has argued.
“There is an urgent need for government to intentionally ensure price stability before the situation becomes deplorable,” MAN said.
Food prices will remain elevated until the security crisis, which has prevented farmers from returning to their land, is resolved, said Cheta Nwanze, a lead partner with SBM Intelligence.
That’s “unless the government does the sensible thing and allows food imports to happen,” he said.
Until then Nigerians, who already spend more than half their earnings on food, have had to cut down.
Just over 50 per cent of all households reported reduced consumption between July and December last year due to the twin pressures of falling wages and rising food costs, according to the NBS.
Kemi Adedigba, a 42-year-old freelance writer living in Lagos, the country’s financial hub, is among those who has been hit by that double-whammy.
She has two growing teenagers to feed, but is struggling with a steady drop in work even as her monthly food bill climbed by almost 70 per cent since December.
“You are lucky if you get recurring gigs with the way the economy is going down the toilet,” Adedigba said. “It is a nightmare.”