President Muhammadu Buhari in his 2018 New Year’s Day address said that importation of rice will be completely stopped this year to encourage local production, a sentiment which, on the surface, appears to be good news for the local economy, but in reality fraught with inadequate knowledge of current realities.
Rice importation through the ports have been technically banned since 2015 as a discouraging 70 percent tariff more or less effectively dissuaded importation through the ports, while it remained totally banned through the land borders.
The reality as BusinessDay findings show is that, as legal importation to Nigeria drops drastically, neighbouring countries such as Benin, Cameroun, Niger and others have seen their parboiled rice imports increasing. Ironically, these countries mostly consume white rice (another variant of the staple), whereas they import more parboiled rice, which, consideration their population, can last them for a decade. However, they continue to import parboiled rice every year while legal imports continue to decline in Nigeria as smuggling increases exponentially.
Data gathered by BusinessDay show that Benin Republic with an estimated population of 11 million people imported 609,893 metric tonnes of parboiled rice from India in 2017, while Niger, with an estimated population of 21 million people, imported 98,179 metric tonnes, and curiously, Nigeria, with a population of 186 million imported only 8,726 metric tonnes.
Also, data by the Thai Rice Exporters Association shows that Benin Republic’s imports from Thailand from January to November 2017 stood at 1.64 million metric tonnes, a 32 percent increase from 1.24 million metric tonnes within the same period in 2016, and an increment of 104.45 percent from 805,765 metric tonnes exported to Benin republic in 2015. Cameroun also imported 663, 667 metric tonnes of parboiled rice from Thailand between January and November 2017, a 47.64 percent increase from 449, 513 within the same period in 2016, and 449, 297 metric tonnes in 2015.
An investigation carried out by BusinessDay some months ago shows that smuggling is rife along the official border points and despite the claim that rice importation is banned through the borders, traders continue to import the commodity through official border points usually after settling customs officials.
Only Nigeria consumes parboiled rice among its neighbours. We can safely assume that a majority of the parboiled rice being imported by Nigeria’s neighbours end up in Nigeria. So, while we cite the reduced number of rice imports to showcase our drive towards self-sufficiency, the reality is that majority of the rice in the Nigerian market are imported smuggled rice for which Nigeria loses the huge duties that should accrue to it.
The reality is that we are not producing enough and we are heavy consumers. To ban the importation of a commodity, you must produce over 100 percent of what you need. As long as that is not the case, importation whether legal or illegal, is inevitable.
What is more, with the price of smuggled imported rice being lower than locally produced rice, it is no wonder to see why the problem of smuggling is going to remain with us for a long time.
While we agree with the president that Nigeria needs to be self-sufficient in food production, it is equally noteworthy to ensure that it is done the right way and self-sufficiency is attained not just in name alone, but in effect.
