About three weeks after the dramatic display of rice pyramids in Abuja on January 16, 2022, to showcase the “arrival” of Nigeria as a major rice producer under the watch of President Muhammadu Buhari, what next?

The Federal Government, in collaboration with the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, and the Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria, RIFAN, had staged that show to demonstrate the outcome of the CBN’s Anchor Borrower’s Programme, ABP, launched in November 2015.

Over a million bags of un-milled or paddy rice collected from the Anchor Borrowers from all over the country were arranged in pyramids to symbolise Nigeria’s capacity to produce rice for domestic consumption and export.

At the occasion, President Buhari revealed that Nigeria’s rice production capacity had almost doubled from the less than four million metric tonnes in 2015 to 7.5 metric tonnes.

He also added that our milling capacity has climbed from 15 standard rice mills to over 50 with more in the works. Indeed, the RIFAN also asserted that Nigeria was now “self-sufficient” and ready to start exporting rice.

Nigerians, whose hope that the rice would be used to flood the markets to bring down the prices of the commodity, were however, disappointed when they learnt that the rice was not ready for consumption. Why did the FG and CBN choose to display the rice in paddy form?

Since then, the word: “scam”, has crept into the narrative against the background that rice, the main staple consumed during the just-concluded Christmas and New Year festivities, was beyond the reach of most citizens.

A bag of Nigeria-produced rice sold for between N31,000 and N72,000 (for premium brands such as Abakaliki or Ebonyi Rice). Indeed, Senator Hanga Rufai, a major rice farmer in Kano, called the rice pyramids a “scam”, alleging that a lot of the rice was “imported” from neighbouring countries.

He asserted that most participants in the Anchor Borrowers programme had either pocketed the CBN’s funds or were unable to pay because of harassment or displacement by bandits, terrorists and armed herdsmen.

While it is incontestable that rice production has continued to expand since the President Goodluck Jonathan regime brought Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina to revive our agricultural sector about eleven years ago, Nigeria would have been closer to self-sufficiency if the Buhari regime had fulfilled its pledge to arrest our security challenges. The situation was worsened by his regime’s kid-gloves handling of the marauding herdsmen and bandits who have now morphed into full-scale terrorists making farming near-impossible.

The rice pyramids must be seen for what they really are: symbols of Nigeria’s capacity to produce rice for self-sufficiency and export. This can only be possible when peace and stability are restored and farming re-established at commercial scale. Without this enabling environment, the notion of rice pyramids is a ruse.

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