Bring back food so Nigerians can feed
The hunger challenge in Nigeria is a real and pressing issue that demands urgent attention. It is part of the task of resuscitating the Nigerian economy, and it goes deeper than perhaps many regulators realise, based on the official figures they depend on for their actions. Food has become expensive in Nigeria, and that is […]
The hunger challenge in Nigeria is a real and pressing issue that demands urgent attention. It is part of the task of resuscitating the Nigerian economy, and it goes deeper than perhaps many regulators realise, based on the official figures they depend on for their actions.
Food has become expensive in Nigeria, and that is so because its supply has been constrained by several factors. But many warn that if food is scarce and expensive this year, without orchestrated efforts from now, a worse situation will emerge in 2026. They warn that if the government fails to deal with the factors that are today taking food beyond the reach of ordinary Nigerians, more Nigerians will face food insecurity next year.
Nigeria must rise to the challenge of ensuring that it is able to feed its citizens. This is a call for the state to provide an environment that supports the supply of food and that households earn incomes that enable them to purchase enough quantities and variety of food items to satisfy their needs. This is the basic function of the state.
Last week this column focused on an unfortunate trend that should disturb everyone who plays a role in the management of the Nigerian economy. It had to do with the rising incidence of unsold goods. As the unsold goods expire or approach their expiry dates while on the shelves or warehouses of either producers or sellers, the owners wanting to limit their losses, offer them for sale to hungry Nigerians. Linked to that is the startling reality that many Nigerians are turning to expired goods, which either the producers or marketers now dispose of at giveaway prices.
Turning to expired goods that are now sold at giveaway prices is simply a matter of dancing with the devil in the market square. It simply says that those involved in it have been pushed to the wall. Expired foods pose a danger to human health, so for anyone to ignore those factors means that they do not have many alternatives to secure food for themselves and their families.
Whatever the government plans to achieve with the ongoing reforms, a key parameter for assessing its achievements will be what it does to address the hunger level in the land. Ensuring that Nigerians get food to eat will be a meaningful way of fighting poverty, which remains a thorny issue in the country.
Hunger is the first sign of poverty. It is quite unlikely that a person who is described as hungry can be excluded from the list of poor people. This probably explains the fact that in the ranking of the SDGs, the eradication of poverty is number one. For the IMF, this should be the government’s priority as it pursues its reform programme. Nigeria needs stronger and more sustained growth to lift millions of people out of poverty and food insecurity, which is what the authorities are focusing on, the Fund said in a statement it issued from its Staff Report for the 2025 Article IV Consultation with Nigeria, noting, however, that this does not happen overnight.
Nigerians are hungry in large numbers. Last year, the UN projected that the number of hungry people in Nigeria would rise to 33 million this year, an increase of about seven million people over the level then. “Several factors are driving this trend, but most prominently are economic hardship coupled with record-high inflation, a record rise in food prices, and record-high transportation costs,” it said in a report.
The Fund notes that while Nigeria has recorded “encouraging” progress since the reforms began in 2023, significant challenges remain. It lists some of the factors that are deepening poverty in the country: inflation still exceeds 20 per cent; poor infrastructure, especially for electricity, inhibits economic activity.
Part of the tragedy of Nigeria is that we have gotten so used to these conditions that even our policymakers hardly link them to poverty. Take electricity, for instance. Does it feature on the list of factors associated with the rising poverty level in the country? There are thousands of ways in which a regular, affordable supply of electricity can pull people out of poverty by enabling them to perform some economic activities. However, millions of micro businesses cannot survive with the current electricity pricing model in the country.
Without a regular income from such micro-economic activities, many Nigerian households will be stuck in poverty. This is why poverty and food insecurity remain high. They are food insecure because their incomes are too low. The first point that this poverty will hit is the food supply because poor households will ration food within the family.
This is compounded by the fact that, as the IMF noted, Nigeria lacks an effective social safety net to cushion the impact of shocks on the most vulnerable. The way out of this is a stronger and more sustained growth to lift millions of Nigerians out of poverty and food insecurity, the Fund said.