The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, says the rising prices of food in Nigeria will come down as more food is produced.
He said this in Abuja on Thursday at the 9th edition of President Muhammadu Buhari Administration’s Scorecard Series (2015 to 2023).
He said the area of self-sufficiency in most basic needs, as part of Buhari’s administration’s scorecard, had been largely downplayed.
Mohammed said though the nation was not fully there yet, the administration had done well since assuming office.
He said before the COVID-19 pandemic, the Russia-Ukraine war and the economic uncertainty that had disrupted global supply chains, Buhari had admonished Nigerians to grow what they eat and eat what they grow.
The minister said many neither understood the importance of that admonition nor appreciated its relevance.
He said the consequence of that admonition, which made Nigerians to look inwards and relied less on imports, saved Nigerians from hunger, especially during the prolonged global lockdown when exporting nations shut their ports and borders and nations that relied on imports were struggling to meet their needs.
“Imagine that Nigeria, during that period, had relied on imports to feed itself. In 2020, when the pandemic started, we were just five years into the Buhari administration’s food security programme.
“But we had enough food to eat and enough fertiliser to farm, thanks also to the Presidential Fertiliser Initiative. Even before the pandemic, our borders were closed and food imports were largely banned.”