At the launch of the rice pyramid yesterday, at Abuja, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele disclosed that 2,160 metric tonnes of rice was imported into the country in 2021.
His principal, President Muhammadu Buhari, had not shared the same opinion in his interview with Channels TV where he said “Look, when we closed the border between Benin and Niger Republic, we stopped the importation of rice, now Nigerians, we produce the rice we need and even export”.
Rice is one of the most consumed staples in the country. In a recent report, Dataphyte noted that Nigerians eat rice at least twice a week, putting the annual consumption at almost 7 million metric tonnes.
When President Muhammadu Buhari assumed office in 2015, he pledged to help the country become self-sufficient in rice.
In 2015, the Federal government through the CBN placed a ban on importation of 41 items including rice from accessing foreign exchange in the official window. It also banned rice imports across land borders and kept 70% tariffs on imports coming through ports.
Two years later, the Buhari-led government took a step further as the President stated in his new year message that “Rice imports will stop this year. Local rice, fresher and more nutritious will be on our dishes from now on”.
In January 2018, the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) confirmed that the CBN stopped issuing Form ‘M’ to importers for importation of rice. Form ‘M’ is a mandatory statutory document to be completed by all importers for importation of goods into Nigeria.
It is clear that the Buhari-led administration has banned the importation of rice. From a policy perspective, it makes sense to ban importation of a product to drive local production and consumption especially given that over dependence on importation affects a country’s economic stability.
Besides President Buhari’s pledge to help the country become self-sufficient in rice, the ban may be his way of encouraging Nigerians to consider going into rice farming, farming being his favourite solution to Nigeria’s economic challenges.
True to his pledge, rice production in Nigeria has increased, going from 2.20 million metric tonnes in 2007 to 5.6 million tonnes in 2018. The country has however not reached self-sufficiency, since what the country produces is yet to meet its consumption/demand level.
To make up for the deficit, since it appears Nigerians can’t stop eating rice, some reports estimate that 2 million metric tonnes of rice are smuggled into the country annually.
Besides the known fact that rice is still smuggled into the country, one question in the minds of curious citizens who have continued to hear the government say Nigeria produces enough rice is this, “does the government believe its own hype or deliberately obtuse about rice importation in the country?”
This curiosity might have been cleared with the disclosure made by the CBN Governor at the launch of the rice pyramid yesterday as he noted that 2,160 metric tonnes of rice was exported from Thailand to Nigeria in 2021.
According to Emefiele, “By 2016, rice imports from Thailand had fallen to just only 58,000 metric tonnes. As of the end of 2021, they only exported 2,160 metric tonnes of rice to Nigeria, thereby saving Nigeria foreign exchange and helping to preserve jobs for our people”.
While this disclosure by the CBN Governor confirms an earlier report by Dataphyte that Nigeria has not yet reached self-sufficiency with respect to rice production, it also reveals that the government is aware of the importation of rice into the country.
The disclosure makes one query the data or research on which the president’s assertions of rice self-sufficiency and exports, in his Channels interview, were made. Perhaps his initial statements were an expression of his desire for rice production in the country because at the launch the president’s statement about rice production and export was closer to the reality of the staple in Nigeria.