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🇳🇬 Nigeria /Economy & Trade

Sustain food imports due to insecurity, TUC tells govt

From The Punch · () English

Summarized and contextualized by DistantNews.

At a glance

News Named sources Context piece
  • The Trade Union Congress of Nigeria urged the government to continue food imports until insecurity allows farmers to return to their fields.
  • The union warned that ending imports abruptly could cause staple food prices to rise again, citing the high cost of rice and tomatoes.
  • The TUC also called for further measures to strengthen the naira, aiming for a rate between 900 and 1,000 to the dollar.

The Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) is pressing the Federal Government to maintain its policy of food importation. The union argues this is crucial until insecurity issues are resolved, enabling farmers to safely return to their agricultural activities. TUC President-General Festus Osifo stated on Tuesday in Abuja that an immediate halt to imports could trigger another surge in staple food prices.

We don’t want a bag of rice to go back again to N100,000. We don’t want a bag of rice to go back again to N120,000. Even where it is today, we still believe it’s still relatively high.

— Festus OsifoThe TUC President-General expressed concern about the high cost of staple foods like rice.

Osifo expressed the union's concern that despite some stabilization in macroeconomic indicators, the benefits have not reached workers, traders, and households grappling with high living costs. He noted that the cost of basic items like jollof rice has more than doubled since President Bola Tinubu took office, with fuel prices also rising significantly after subsidy removal.

We still believe it can still come down much more than that. The same thing with the price of tomato, the same thing with the price of yam, because we must feed ourselves before we are able to do anything else.

— Festus OsifoOsifo elaborated on the need for food prices to decrease further.

Recalling a 15-point demand submitted by the TUC in early 2024, Osifo highlighted the need to tackle food insecurity, general insecurity, and the erosion of workers' purchasing power. He reiterated support for food imports, explaining that insecurity has severely limited farmers' access to their land, thus constraining domestic supply. "We don’t want a bag of rice to go back again to N100,000. We don’t want a bag of rice to go back again to N120,000," Osifo stated, emphasizing that prices remain high and could still decrease.

Food importations could be stopped only and only if farmers could go back to farms. Only if and only when the supply end has been solved.

— Festus OsifoThe TUC President-General outlined the conditions under which food imports could cease.

He urged the government to prioritize addressing insecurity and boosting domestic food production before discontinuing imports. "Food importations could be stopped only and only if farmers could go back to farms. Only if and only when the supply end has been solved," he asserted. Osifo also called on the Central Bank of Nigeria to implement further measures to strengthen the naira, advocating for a target rate between 900 and 1,000 to the dollar, despite recent improvements.

Government must sustain this policy and solve the state of insecurity so that our farmers can go back to farms.

— Festus OsifoOsifo urged the government to maintain the import policy while tackling insecurity.
DistantNews Editorial

Originally published by The Punch. Summarized and contextualized by our editorial team with added local perspective. Read our editorial standards.

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