Prices of both local and foreign parboiled rice, Nigeria’s most popular staple food, have hit the roof 16 months after the Federal Government shut down the land borders to international business.
The action, according to the Federal Government was to boost local production of rice and poultry foods through increased consumption of made-in-Nigeria rice, reduce the rate of smuggling of foreign rice and frozen foods as well as smuggled used cars and weapons.
Though, Federal Executive Council (FEC) on Wednesday announced the immediate reopening of four land borders in Nigeria including Seme, Illela, Maigatari, and Mfun borders 16 months after closure to legitimate and illegal businesses, the unanswered question in the minds of every Nigerian is if the closure of borders recorded gains for the nation’s economy?
BusinessDay SUNDAY checks revealed that the implementation of border closure policy has had its gains as well as negative economic impact, which can be seen in high rate of inflation in country as a result of high prices of commodities.
The rise in the rate of inflation in Nigeria, which presently stands at 14.89 percent according to National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), was mainly driven by rising food costs which is ironic as the aim of the border closure was to drive down costs through increased local production.
While the Federal Government through the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has on several occasions argued that billions of Naira worth of revenue have been generated into the government coffers within the period of shutting down the border, many Nigerians who depended on the border for livelihood, especially those doing legitimate businesses around the border area, have become poorer in the last one year and half.
Besides those doing business in the border area, other citizens, especially those living below the poverty line, have increasingly found it difficult to have rice on their menu lists following the high market prices of rice.
Recent market survey show that 50kg of foreign parboiled rice now sells between N25,000 and N28,000 compared to N14,500 selling price in 2019 before the border closure. The local brands of 50kg parboiled rice, which sold for N13,500, now sells between N26,000 and N27,000.
The 25kg bag of foreign rice now sells for N14,000 while the same size in local brands go for between N13,000 and N13,500. For the retailers, one paint of foreign rice now sells for N2,500 while the same of local rice now goes for N2,300. For the derica size, foreign rice now sells at N500 while local rice goes for N400.
“Formerly, rice used to be one of the cheapest foods to prepare for any family in Nigeria, but today, price of rice has gone beyond the poor man’s reach,” said Kehinde Afolabi, a civil servant.
According to her, it has become increasingly difficult to provide three square meals for the family following the high prices of rice and other food stuff in Nigerian markets.
Afolabi told BusinessDay SUNDAY that these problems started when the Federal Government shut down the land borders where affordable food stuffs were finding their way into the Nigerian market.
“I don’t believe that we have achieved anything meaningful with the closure of borders because the increase in prices of rice and other food items has shown that Nigerian farmers alone cannot feed the near 200 million Nigerians on their own,” said the mother of four.
Sunday Chukwu, a trader in one of the popular markets in Lagos, told our correspondent that he has not been able to buy even 25kg bag of rice for his family for the festive season due to the high cost.
“Things are very tough for us these days. I deal on bicycle spare parts but one hardly makes ends meet due to the poor economic situation in the country. The other day, we were told that Nigeria has slipped into recession. This year has been the worst for those of us in business. The exchange rate is high, naira is fast losing its value, the Covid-19 lockdown and high food prices in the market were the problems of every Nigerian,” he said.
Chukwu, who pointed out that every family in Nigeria are presently facing one problem or the other due to the bad economic management in the country, said eating rice has become food for the elite class.
For me, border closure was one of the worst policies of this administration because the foreign rice, which government tried to stop with the policies, are presently in the market but the truth is that they are coming in at a very high cost.
Apart from families, corporate bodies that used to give out rice as gift to their workers and other stakeholders during festivity are now finding it difficult to buy trailer load of rice to share to their staff.
For instance, a big company, name withheld, but a big player in the insurance industry that used to share rice to its workers at the end of every year, said it could not afford even 25kg of rice for its close to 1000 staff and other stakeholders due to the high cost.
“Today, when is expected that our company would sustain the good gesture of sharing rice to our stakeholders as gift, it is no longer possible for us to give out even local rice for which the Federal Government shut the borders to promote. It now seems that after 16 months of shutting the nation’s land borders, Nigeria has achieved nothing as poverty level and quality of life of citizens have sharply dropped,” said a human resources executive of one of the big corporate companies in Lagos, who does not want his name in print.
On job creation, Kayode Farinto, vice president of the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), said during the border closure, that over 1,000 licensed customs agents that depended on the border for business, have been out of business with over 200,000 employees suffering job losses since the borders were closed.
He said that the continuous closure of the land borders would also affect Nigeria in the long run.
“Many people that move cargoes through the borders are now unemployed with many sick and not able to afford a living. In the spirit of ECOWAS, this border closure is not good for Nigeria. Now, we are trying to practise the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AFCFTA), the closure also negates the agreement that Nigeria has signed,” he said.
Many economists believed that the recent move to reopen the border is not unconnected with the January 1, 2021 take off of AfCTA, which the government reluctantly signed on July 7, 2020.
Last month, Nigeria ratified the Africa’s historic free trade agreement that is slated to come into effect on January 1 2021, and it also paved way for potential re-opening of borders ahead of January. The ratification has been hailed as helping to inch the continent towards becoming the world’s largest free trade area since the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
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