By Abdulwasiu Hassan
Truckloads of grain and other items are reportedly being smuggled out of Nigeria to neighbouring countries through clandestine routes across states even as citizens battle the double whammy of hoarding and soaring food inflation.
The gravity of the situation is reflected in Vice President Kashim Shettima's candid admission of food slippage at a wealth management conference in Abuja on February 20.
"Just three nights ago, 45 truckloads of maize were caught being transported to a neighbouring country," Shettima told the gathering. "The moment that foodstuff was intercepted, the price of maize came down by N10,000...There are forces hell-bent on undermining our nation."
Before the Vice President's speech at the event, Nigerian customs had reported intercepting truckloads of food items that smuggling cartels were attempting to take out through several routes, including Jigawa State in the northwestern part of the country.
Nigerian Customs Services is usually not in the news for intercepting foodstuff being siphoned out of the borders. Its brief is to stop the illegal import of staple foods such as rice to actualise the government’s import substitution policies.
Until a few years ago, Nigeria's primary challenge was to stop racketeers from smuggling out subsidised fuel to neighbouring countries.
When the authorities could no longer stem the flood of subsidised oil to the neighbouring countries, they shut the Nigeria-Benin border (Seme) in 2019. This step was also meant to protect the local rice farmers and millers from cheaper foreign rice imported through the Benin Republic.
According to the government, this is one of the factors that necessitated the removal of fuel subsidies at the risk of inviting new problems.
Nigeria is now battling alarmingly high food inflation, which the National Bureau of Statistics pegged at a year-on-year high of 35.41% this January.
The country is taking stringent measures to reduce food inflation, but it's an uphill battle.
Reform measures
Nigeria has shifted from pegging the value of the naira to a floating rate so that the currency could find its "real value". This, coupled with removing fuel subsidies, constitutes the significant reforms President Bola Ahmed Tinubu announced when he assumed office last May.
The floating of the naira resulted in the fall of the local currency from around 450 naira to a US dollar to about 1,500 in the country's foreign exchange market.
With the depreciation of Nigerian currency that resulted from a policy shift, the West African CFA franc and the Central African CFA franc used by Nigeria’s neighbours now have more value than the naira.
This makes it more expensive to smuggle food items from other countries into Nigeria and profitable for food producers to sell their produce outside.
Experts say this is one of the factors leading to truckloads of smuggled food items being regularly intercepted by customs officials.
Collateral damage
Although the government's attempt to conserve the country's hard-earned forex is working, the flip side is the high cost of living that is causing hardship to most Nigerian households.
President Tinubu says he knows the reforms are causing pain to ordinary Nigerians but promises it will be temporary.
''There is light at the end of the tunnel. I requested the job, and I am not complaining about it. I take full responsibility,'' Tinubu says.
He has ordered grain to be released from the country's national reserves, among other measures, to tame runaway food inflation.
Customs authorities have started selling seized rice to Nigerians at a discounted price of N10,000 for 25 kg to lessen their burden. Sub-national governments have also been rolling out other palliatives to ease the citizens' woes.
Porous borders
Vice President Shettima revealed at the Abuja conference that 32 smuggling routes had been unearthed just in the axis of the Illela Local Government area in Sokoto State.
The scale of the problem can be gauged from the fact that the Illela border is a tiny portion of the 1,600-odd km of porous boundary between Nigeria and Niger alone. The country also shares borders running into thousands of kilometres with Chad and Cameroon.
Some estimates put the number of illegal smuggling routes at over 1,000, making it practically impossible to plug these holes.
“Although there are theoretical arguments to restricted trade, I see restricted trade or border closure as archaic economic policy in this modern world,” Dr Yahaya Yakubu of Department of Economics, Bauchi state University tells TRT Afrika.
''There is more to gain if a country engages in a strategic free trade agreement. Not opening up to competition keeps local industries underdeveloped and inefficient, with a high cost of production undermining the general welfare of the populace,'' he adds.
Nigeria could potentially drag down food prices by increasing supply through strategic trade, reversing economic policies that increase the cost of production and, over the long term, investing heavily in agriculture and opening the sector to strategic foreign direct investment.
Controlling forex to reduce the export of food is another possibility. Export is good, albeit not in this form.
Concerted campaign
After an anti-corruption agency of the northwestern Kano State started targeting those it alleged were hoarding food, President Tinubu asked security agents to go after those doing the same in the rest of the country.
"This is a time for us to merge into a single force, rally around our President, our government, and each other. We have the resources, we have the intellect, and we can turn the corner. We have crossed the Rubicon. We are on a path to improved economic performance," Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State said.
He said his government was encouraging urban farming for a start.
"Let us eat what we grow, and grow what we eat. Let us take up this challenge and use spaces around us to grow food," Sanwo-Olu told Lagosians.
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