The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has accused President Bola Tinubu’s administration of running out of ideas on how to address the rising cost of living, saying the government’s focus on headline inflation figures ignores the reality of hunger in Nigerian households.
Speaking on Tuesday through its National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, the party said the latest report by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) confirmed that food remained unaffordable for ordinary Nigerians despite the marginal decline in overall inflation.
The ADC noted that while headline inflation decreased from 15.91 percent in June to 15.43 percent in July, food inflation moved in the opposite direction.
“While the government welcomes the moderation in headline inflation announced by the NBS, the same report tells a much more worrying story,” Abdullahi said.
“While headline inflation slowed, food inflation accelerated sharply, rising from 17.52 percent in June to 20.31 percent in July year-on-year. More worryingly, food inflation rose from 3.75 percent in June to 5.56 percent in July year-on-year. This means that prices of foods such as rice, tomatoes, onions, peppers, beef beef, eggs, garri and other staples in Nigeria increased by 48 percent in July alone.”
The party said the NBS figures support an earlier report by the Food and Agriculture Organization that 35 million Nigerians face acute food insecurity, and millions of children face malnutrition.
“We therefore find it highly insensitive for the government to continue making claims about economic progress while Nigerians are starving under its watch,” the statement read. “The Tinubu administration must answer a very simple question: if the government’s economic reforms are working, why do Nigerians continue to find it increasingly difficult to afford food?”
The ADC said the government had “done the best it could within the limits of the chosen approach” and should now admit its limitations rather than make “relentless attempts to deceive people who can no longer be deceived by the government’s propaganda that ‘things are getting better’”.
“You cannot eliminate hunger based on written figures,” Abdullahi said.
The party said food security must be treated as a national security issue and proposed a five-point plan.
First, the ADC said its government would move from scattered agricultural interventions to an integrated and targeted national food production and distribution strategy focused on the staple foods most consumed by Nigerians.
Secondly, the party said it would directly address the cost of production by using targeted aid to reduce the cost of fertilisers, seeds, machinery, diesel, transport and finance for farmers.
The ADC expressed its plan to make the security of farmers and agricultural settlements the basis of food policy, noting that inputs are useless if farmers cannot access their farms.
The party also talked about plans to reduce transport costs by tackling poor roads, insecurity and multiple taxes that make transporting food from farms to markets more expensive.
The ADC also proposed establishing a national food reserve through a transparent strategic buffer system to release staple foods when prices rise and buy from Nigerian farmers when prices collapse.
“The Tinubu administration can point to the decline in overall inflation as evidence that its reforms are working. But Nigerians have the right to look at a different number: the price of food,” the ADC said. “The government’s responsibility is not to explain this contradiction, but to solve it.”
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