Nigeria facing reality of futile border closure on soaring food prices, low agric output

With Nigeria’s border closure now in its 15th month, the country is caught between the proverbial devil and the deep blue sea.

The economy has not only slid into a second recession in four years but whatever gains the government thought would be recorded by shutting the borders have so far remained elusive.

The shame of reopening the borders with little or nothing to show for all the economic disruptions it has caused is making it hard to reopen the borders on one hand, while on the other hand, the government has no choice but to eventually do so if it will partake in Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement, which was recently ratified and commences January 2021.

While Nigeria’s borders are said to have been closed, “In actual fact, the smuggling continues. Most of the things smuggled in before did not come through the traditional borders; therefore, it was the wrong gate that was closed. When you go to town, you still find all imported chicken is available and many other things. How did they get here,” asked Emmanuel Ijewere, vice president, Nigeria Agribusiness Group (NABG), in a phone interview.

When the borders were shut to the movement of goods in August 2019, the main objective was to boost local agricultural output by making farming more attractive and profitable for local farmers.

A year and three months later, the country is battling acute food insufficiency, which appears to be even worse off than before the borders were closed.

“Right now we are in a catch 22 situation about our closed borders,” said Kabir Ibrahim, national president, All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN). “Opening them now will not necessarily augur very well for the economy because our immediate neighbours are worse off than us economically and keeping them still closed will limit our participation in AfCFTA, which we recently ratified.”

For Ibrahim, Nigeria is caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, as the saying goes.

The closure of the country’s border, it appears, was more of physical activity without intellectual rigour to design how to boost local food production. The borders could not be shut indefinitely, and the time in between, if truly the government had a purpose to boost local food production, should have seen a flurry of strategically conceived activities to increase output in the sector beyond what was being recorded.

However, for months, food availability has become increasingly difficult due to a number of factors, but none of which negate the government’s lack of preparation to achieve lasting food security post-border closure.

“We certainly have not taken advantage of the border closure and this could never have been taken advantage of because of the disconnect that exists between government policy (and implementation),” Ijewere said.

He also explained that at the time the borders were being closed, the various stakeholders in terms of ministries of agriculture, trade, and investment, including the CBN and the private sector should have been brought together to actually think through what activities would be launched rapidly to drive productivity while the borders were closed.

“Nobody planned it or prepared for it,” he said. “If you close the border during the dry season and no planting is being done, it would not make the farmers plant more because in any case there is no rain as a water resource for the farming,” said Ijewere, who is also CEO of Best Foods.

However, for Bolarin Omonona, an academic and agricultural economist at the University of Ibadan, “I think the government has tried its best through the various programmes such as the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme. One other basic problem is how much have we invested in downstream activities.

“Yes, we produce but how much of these are actually saved securely for the lean period. How much marketing and storage functions are being performed, those are critical factors because even when we produce, some of these do not have long shelf lives, especially for vegetables and fruits.”

He also said he was not privy to any recent statistics to demonstrate how much progress or lack of it that has been recorded since the border closure.

Ibrahim of AFAN also claims the CBN interventions have been a bonus to agricultural production, but can be more efficiently done by identifying the real practicing farmers through AFAN.

Good and veritable seeds, revamped extension service, and articulate mechanization must be given the required impetus to upscale productivity in order to attain sustainable food sufficiency, he said.

However, the current reality for many Nigerians is the rising cost of food items and no data available, officially or unofficially, to demonstrate what gains Nigeria has made through the border closure, particularly in terms of boosting agricultural output.