By Taiwo Hassan
The immediate past National President of
Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA), and Chairman, Alliance for Economic Research and Ethics, Otunba Kelvin Dele Oye, has predicted that Nigeria may witness the return of severe hunger in the next two years following current government’s food imports policy which seeks to flood Nigerian markets with imported food products.
Oye, who dropped this hint in hint in his Chairman”s speech at the Centre for Financial Journalism (CFJ)’s The Bullion Lecture 2026 series in Lagos yesterday, sharply criticized the government’s food imports policy which has resulted in uncertainty and crisis in the country’s agric sector, with series of lamentations from Nigeria”s agric farmers.
The erstwhile NACCIMA national president said: “Recently, we were at the Vanguard Newspaper Economic Discourse which I was one of the Chairs and also delivered a keynote address and something came out there. We were talking about Nigeria’s Agriculture. Can you believe that all the stakeholders that were there, not one person has benefitted anything from the agric value chain, not single one? I am not talking about small boys in agric value chain. When you talk about the All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), they said they don’t have anything either in terms of support from government. And the one that is even more criminal, the government told all of us that they wanted to finance the Bank of Agriculture (BoA), they raised the capital. They are supposed to put N1.5 trillion there, but one kobo has not yet been given to the Bank of Agriculture till date. How can you now tell people that the Bank of Agriculture should go to Commercial Bank and take loan at 35 per cent? “And what has even killed the farmers most, is the beneath of government to start importing food. So what has happened? And when they brought that policy, we wrote and said even if it’s in bulk, give the contract to those who have invested in the sector so that if they make any excess, they would re-invest it. “But what do they do? they gave it to the same hungers and people standing around that are in the Villa. And all what they do they have over imports foods and today, people are abandoning their crops.”
He explained that “Cassava is so cheap that if you hired people to go and remove yours you can’t recover that money you used to removed it not to talk less of making profit. “So people have been going bankrupt because of poor policies. And what even this import policy creates is that in the next two years, we will be back to hunger again! Because people have stopped farming, people are going bankrupt and people are now choosing whether it pays to imports than try to produce. “So, government policy is so important because it is the foundation which you can do any investments in. When the policy is wrong you can never make any profit from it. “Take a good example about what Dangote is doing about his Refinery, if government is not supporting it, helps him not get a free trade zone, he did not get to a reasonable dollar under the government, at least, he did something to that effect. “Today, all African countries come to Nigeria to beg for fuel. They are complaining about the high price but, in some countries they don’t even have at all. “Nigeria is rescuing other countries. Just imagine if there is no Dangote Refinery, you probably this lecture you hold it on the zoom, if there is even light to access the zoom. “What I am trying to say is that what has been responsible for our microeconomic and the ones the government is celebrating is the efforts of the private sector. People like BUA, Dangote and co who took the risk not at 35 per cent interest rate because they have other resources and they could be able to access capital abroad,” Oye added.