The African Democratic Congress has accused the President Bola Tinubu-led government of running out of ideas to tackle the rising cost of food, saying the government’s celebration of moderating headline inflation does not reflect the economic reality confronting millions of Nigerians.
The opposition party said the latest inflation figures released by the National Bureau of Statistics showed that while headline inflation moderated marginally, food inflation continued to rise, making basic staples increasingly unaffordable for households.
In a statement issued on Tuesday by its National Publicity Secretary, Bolaji Abdullahi, the ADC said the government should stop placing undue emphasis on headline inflation and instead focus on the prices Nigerians pay for food in markets across the country.
The party said headline inflation fell from 15.91 per cent in June to 15.43 per cent in July, while food inflation rose from 17.52 per cent to 20.31 per cent year-on-year during the same period.
It also noted that food inflation increased from 3.75 per cent in June to 5.56 per cent in July on a month-on-month basis.
“The government continues to stubbornly focus on this statistical indicator, while ignoring the more serious indicator, which confirms that staple foods are still beyond the reach of ordinary citizens,” the party said.
According to the ADC, the figures underscore the widening gap between official economic indicators and the experience of Nigerians who are struggling to afford basic food items.
It added that the Tinubu administration had reached the limits of its current economic approach and should acknowledge that its policies had failed to produce the desired relief for ordinary citizens.
“At some point, a responsible government must be willing to admit that it has reached the limits of its capacity and even its best approach has not yielded the desired results.
“The ADC believes this government has done its best within the limits of its chosen approach. Therefore, as the condition of ordinary citizens continues to get worse, what we expect from this government is an honest admission of defeat rather than relentless attempts to hoodwink the people who can no longer be deceived by the government’s ‘things are getting better’ propaganda,” the statement read in part.
The opposition party argued that “hunger cannot be wished away by numbers on paper”, urging the Federal Government to make food affordability a central measure of the success or failure of its economic reforms.
The ADC also linked the food crisis to broader concerns over food insecurity and malnutrition, citing an earlier report by the Food and Agriculture Organisation which it said indicated that 35m Nigerians were facing acute food insecurity.
The party questioned the government’s claims of economic progress against the backdrop of rising food prices.
“The Tinubu administration must answer a very simple question: If the government’s economic reforms are working, why are Nigerians still finding it increasingly difficult to afford food?” it asked.
The party outlined what it described as a different approach to food security if elected into government.
According to Abdullahi, the ADC would treat food security as a national security issue and replace what it described as scattered agricultural interventions with an integrated national food production and distribution strategy focused on the staples most consumed by Nigerians.
The party said it would also seek to reduce the cost of agricultural production by providing targeted support to farmers facing high costs of fertiliser, seeds, machinery, diesel, transportation and finance.
“Farmers cannot produce affordable food when the cost of fertiliser, seeds, machinery, diesel, transportation and finance keeps rising,” the party said, adding that targeted interventions would be used to reduce production costs rather than relying mainly on broad programmes whose benefits might not reach farmers.
Security, it said, would form another pillar of its proposed food policy.
“There is little point providing farmers with inputs if insecurity prevents them from reaching their farms, harvesting their crops or transporting them to market,” it added.