Femi Ogbonnikan
The current rising food inflation facing Nigeria is in all its ramifications an existential threat to the peace and stability of the polity. With the sour experience of the #endbadgovernance protests that recently rocked different states, there is no need restating the nexus between food and national security. In the present circumstance, no responsible government can afford to sit back without addressing the fundamental problem causing the soaring prices of imported or locally produced essential food items. Of course, the alarming scenario is not entirely the fault of the present administration.
The combined effects of insecurity, banditry, climate change, and subsidy removal are the key drivers of the worsening trend. As it has already been observed, food access has been affected by persistent violence in the north-east states of Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe, and armed banditry and kidnapping in states such as Katsina, Sokoto, Kaduna, Benue, and Niger. Even in the Southwest known for growing food crops, fear of insecurity occasioned by herders’ attacks on farmers and grazing on their farmlands has worsened the trend.
For this reason, Ogun State government has found it imperative to mull the idea of price control as a direct intervention to make food affordable for the populace. In economic terms, price control is the legal minimum or maximum prices set for specified goods.
Unlike the free market, where prices are dictated by market forces of supply and demand, price control sets minimum and maximum prices for goods and services. It is usually implemented as a direct economic intervention to manage the affordability of certain goods and services, including food items. The initiative aims to make food more affordable for consumers. The Governor, Prince Dapo Abiodun deemed it necessary to curb the current inflationary trend. Although critics say that price control can have the opposite effect over time, leading to an imbalance between supply and demand, decreased competition, and illegal markets, the present situation calls for direct government intervention.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBC), food inflation in Nigeria reached an all-time high of 40.87 percent in June of 2024 and still rising. This has been partly blamed on fuel subsidy removal by the Federal Government, resulting in an astronomical increase in food prices and food inflation in the country. Further consequences of it have also continued to affect the importation of valued items into the economy and the worsening hunger in the land.
The latest World Food Programme (WFP) report shows that average Nigerian workers spend about 65 percent of their salaries on food alone owing to skyrocketing prices. More than ever before, it has therefore become necessary for all tiers of government to expedite drastic measures to address food insecurity in the country, as millions of people have been projected to face severe hunger in the country. The projection for 2024 indicates a sharp rise from the 18.6 million people currently vulnerable to food insecurity.
This is a present and clear danger that can no longer be ignored. In furtherance of his effort to ensure food accessibility and affordability for the people, the Governor has disclosed the plan of his administration to introduce a price control mechanism in the state to stem the rising food inflation. He also disclosed that henceforth, all forms of market levies had been suspended, noting that only development and environmental levies would be allowed for the development of markets in the state.
This is even as he has indicated the readiness of the administration to commence implementation of bulk purchase and selling of food items. He disclosed this during a meeting with market leaders led by the Iyaloja General, Chief (Mrs.) Yemisi Abass, at the Governor’s Office, Oke-Mosan, Abeokuta.
Governor Abiodun said as part of the measures to control the soaring prices of food items, the state government would soon commence the operation of its Bulk Purchasing Company, which had been rebranded as Gateway Trading Company. The initiative, he said, was to ensure the availability and affordability of food items for the people. According to him, the Gateway Trading Company would, in the first instance, begin operations in the four zones of the state.
“We’ve also resolved that we will begin the implementation of Bulk Purchase and Selling in the state. To that extent, the state government has rebranded our Bulk Purchase Company. It is now called Gateway Trading Board.
“Gateway Trading will now assist in bringing food items to our teeming public at prices that will be significantly below what they can obtain when they go to the market themselves.
“So, we are going to aggressively implement our Gateway Trading objectives. They will first start in the four zones; they will buy in bulk and resell at prices that will be more affordable to our people,” he said.
To ensure compliance with the ban on all forms of levies in the markets, the Governor said that a market enforcement task with a central body in the state would be mirrored in all twenty local government areas, adding that all forms of coercion and intimidation by people who add no value to markets across the state would be stamped out. He stated further that anyone caught collecting illegal fees in markets across the state would face the full wrath of the law, adding that all exorbitant and unbearable shop and stall rents imposed on market men and women must stop.
His words: “A few things have been identified by way of illegal taxes that are being imposed right there in the market; loading taxes, discharge taxes, offloading taxes, and illegal levies in the name of different people. From now on, we are putting a ban on such illegal levies in any market in Ogun State.
“The only levies that will be allowed are what they call the Development Levy and the Environmental Levy. Those are levies that are associated with the upkeep of the market, and even those will have to be agreed upon and made public.
“We also identified that there are people who add no value to food items coming from the farm to markets. They either, by coercion or intimidation, accost farmers and force them to sell at inflated prices.
“We have resolved here that we are going to have a market enforcement task force; there will be a central body here in the state.
“That central body will be mirrored in each local government. Their job will be to ensure that all illegal levies, coercion, and intimidation by different people do not occur again.
“This is not the time for anyone to take advantage of another person. We are going through a transition period; we should be our brother’s keeper, considerate, and humane.
“The Iyaloja gave us the example where a basket of tomatoes is selling for N3,500, while some transporters want to charge N7,000 for transportation. The transportation cost is even much more than the cost of the tomatoes themselves.
“This will no longer happen in Ogun State. We are resolved to ensure that we stamp this out of Ogun State because we want to make this period as painless as possible.
“We also talked about the illegal levies and roadblocks that market men and women are subjected to paying at different points, like tollgates. I have said that I was going to look into this, and that is why we have our law enforcement agencies here to ensure that all those illegal roadblocks and tollgates are removed.
“Any person found collecting money illegally by way of tolls will be arrested and made to face the full wrath of the law; we are not going to tolerate any of these illegalities.
“It was brought to my attention that in some local government areas of the state, developers are brought in to develop their shops and stalls, and when they do so, because they are developers and entrepreneurs whose objective is to make money, they impose unbearable rents on our market men and women. I promised to look into it and ensure that it stops forthwith,” he said.
Governor Abiodun promised that his administration would provide support in the forms of grants, loans, and farm implements to different farmers’ associations in the state.
“We will also assist our market men and women by way of very low-interest loans, which we are already working on.
“We have an Ogun Empowerment Scheme that is being finalized by the Ministries of Industry, Trade and Investment, and Women Affairs, which is geared towards providing single-digit loans or grants, as the case may be, particularly for our informal sector, the market women,” he added.
The Governor assured that the Ministry of Environment, Ogun State Waste Management Agency (OGWAMA), and the Ministry of Women Affairs would work with the relevant stakeholders to ensure effective management of waste in the markets across the state. Accordingly, he charged the agencies to ensure that dumpsters were readily available at the markets and picked up regularly.
In her remarks, the President of Market Women and Men in the State and Iyaloja of Yewaland, Chief Yemisi Abass, commended Governor Abiodun for deeming it fit to call market leaders together to deliberate on how to make life more bearable for the people of the state. She expressed the readiness of her members to work with the government to ensure effective compliance with all the resolutions reached at the meeting.
The new resolutions aim to complement the earlier efforts to ensure food self-sufficiency in the state. It will be recalled that Governor Abiodun recently flagged off the harvest of a 200-hectare of rice plantation at Magboro Rice Farm in Obafemi Owode-Local Government Area of the state as part of the administration’s commitment to revolutionise the traditional mode of farming to enhance productivity. With the flag-off, Ogun State has not only joined states like Lagos, Kebbi, and Bayelsa in producing locally grown rice for the consumption of the people, but has also gone a step further in fostering economic development, creating jobs, and improving livelihoods within the communities.
With a sustained level of production, the project is expected to generate N30 billion as income for the state government, while also enhancing farmers’ profitability. The renewed effort toward self-sufficiency aligns with President Bola Tinubu’s administration’s resolve to eradicate poverty and hunger by providing affordable food to Nigerians. Thus, similar to the directive of the Federal Government to traders to bring down the price of food items, the Governor has taken the bull by the horns by enforcing price control regulations to increase people’s access to food at moderate prices.
Ogbonnikan writes from Abeokuta, Ogun State capital
