 Welcome back to the Breakfast and Plus TV Africa. The UN Food Security Agency says wall food prices jump nearly 13% in March to a new record high as the war in Ukraine costs turmoil in markets for staple grains and edibles. Also the price of food in Nigeria are experiencing a constant increase in particular for maize and gari. The price of white gari grew by 60% compared to the previous year while the price for yellow maize grained by 52% and all the food products that have recorded the highest growth in prices of beans, beef, palm oil, egg. Together with food for the items that have experienced a price increase and non-acoholic beverage clothing and footwear as well as housing, water, electricity and other fuel issues. Mouda Yusuf is a CEO Center for Promotion of Private Enterprise. It's good to have you join us this morning. Thank you very much. Let's share from your knowledge. What would you say is responsible for the cost of or the increase in the prices of food and other items in Nigeria? Well before the recent aggression in Ukraine I've been having serious challenges with inflation. Food inflation has been consistently high even before this new round of challenges with energy prices. I'm quite a number of people who have been responsible to have the challenge of insecurity which has affected agricultural development across the country. But this was more pronounced in the northern part of the country. And as you know the northern part is more or less like the food basket of the nation. So the insecurity issue was a major domestic problem that contributed particularly to food inflation. Then of course we have the challenge of the cost of transportation. Most of the vehicles that move these food items and even other raw materials across the country. Most of them are powered by diesel. Diesel has jumped by over 300 systems in the last one to three months. And all of these additional costs of transportation has to be transferred to the continent in form of hybrid. So the cost of energy has been a major issue. And when we talk about energy it's not only diesel. Even the cost of that, the cost of evasion of oil, the cost of kerosene. All of these costs have gone up dramatically. So to the extent that we use this energy to support some production activity we really have the challenge of high prices. Then we have the challenge of exchange rate. Exchange rate has also depreciated significantly over time. I mean as we speak now, we are talking about $9 to $1, about 5 nights as the time is getting close to almost $600. And this has a partial or knock-on effect on practically all the production activities across practically all sectors of the economy. Then we have the issue of the scarcity of foreign exchange. If we talk to many of the major manufacturers, they have a problem accessing foreign exchange as even whatever. So that is also impeding their production capacity. It's affecting capacity utilization and therefore affecting production, affecting supply. And once you have a drop in supply, you have higher price. Then you have this external factor, which is the Ukraine-Russia war. That again, because of the strategic position of Russia and Ukraine, especially in the area of food production. I want to talk about food here. What is relevant as far as this war is concerned is wheat and corn. Because these two countries are turned for a sizable percentage of global production of wheat and global production of corn. So again, we use the wheat for flour, we use flour for bread. So again, that's a part of itself as a result of that country. That is also affecting this. And where you are putting the UN statement. That is the angle from where the UN is coming from. Then of course, we have other local challenges around the port. You know, getting good out of the port. We have challenges around import duty. Some of the import duty that the government imposes on some of these goods, particularly raw material, are also too high. All right, Mr. Amouda, you survived, if I could just button. So the combination of both the global and domestic factors. All right, if I got you correctly, you talked about external forces, which have also contributed. And the issues in Ukraine and Russia. But what would have thought that it would also have presented an opportunity for the country. From what we read in the news, you know, EU is importing 40 percent of our Nigerian gas. I clearly demanded more. That in another way should be bringing more forex into the country. Don't you think so? Mr. Yusuf, are you still there? I'm here. Can you call me again? When you were talking about all of the issues that have contributed to the rising inflation in the world, you talked about external forces with what's happening in Russian invasion of Ukraine. What would have thought that Nigeria should have gotten some sort of opportunities to boost its economy? In the news just yesterday, we read that the European Union is importing 40 percent of Nigeria's gas. Also demanded more. That in other way should be bringing more forex into the country. Thank you, Ogray. So you are very correct. But again, we have managed our oil and gas sector. Because for many oil producing countries, actually they are celebrating at this time. Celebrating in coal. Because they are making more money from the high crude oil price. Currently, for particularly oil producing countries, they are experiencing what we can call a waste oil as far as 40 percent and this is concern. Unfortunately, Nigeria, you see, it's a failure. First, we cannot even meet our health pressure because of the challenges of oil is the attack on the oil installation and all sorts of problems in the oil producing area. There are also quality issues. You know, we have been grappling with the Tertullum industry and the Tertullum industry for over a decade. The whole idea was to put a very good investment environment for investors, not in oil and gas. But we were dragging this. We managed to put it to us last year. So that affected investments in the oil and gas. Again, for that reason, we are not able to reap the full benefit of this current going forward. Then on the oil importation side, our downstream sector, which includes Tertullum refining, pipeline transportation and all of that, are practically collapse. Again, because of quality problems, it's called the policy environment. We're not encouraging the investor to invest in refining. So all of that has now contributed to the situation. Rather than benefit from the current going forward, we are being penalized by it. It's more or less like it's forced now because we are spending a fortune to be working for Tertullum. Only yesterday, on the floor of the National Assembly, the Senate president was reading the letter from the president asking for supplementary appropriation of almost four trillion for oil and gas. How much is the revenue of government? The way we have managed our oil and gas sector is what has put us in this mess. We talked about gas. Yes, we have some fuel consuming this in gas. The Nigeria NLNP is doing fairly well. But again, we didn't invest fast and big enough in the gas sector. Let's quickly take a look at this thought pattern. The Farmers Association at the time in your state had expressed concern over the prices of farm imputes. And they said in 2022 the cost of food commodities will be on the high. And so if this is the reason that they have stated, how do we then tackle this issue of you have food prices being on the high? Because as much as we want to make reference to the conflicts that's happening right now in Ukraine and Russia, you would also want to agree that this is actually a recent thing. So how do we tackle this? What is the domestic factors or the domestic revenues are things that are within our control? Because just as you said, there are factors that are external, there are factors that are domestic. Some of the domestic factors, which is part of what I mentioned earlier, it's insecurity. If we don't have a good handle on how to secure our environment, particularly their culture, to do so in communities. Many people have fed their farms. These are the people growing the food. One of them is not in the IDC camps. And the situation is getting better. So dealing with this insecurity is one major issue that you have to deal with. If you want to progress the challenge of food inflation, there's domestic costs of transportation. Unfortunately, we cannot support that from energy prices. Because all the crops that are moving around, they are being powered by diesel. So if there is any way we can get the diesel price to come down, that will not only help the cost of transportation, it will also help to bring down the cost of production. Because many manufacturing firms now have increased their cost. I mean they have increased their cost because of the increase in energy costs. All right. Thank you so much, Mr. Mouda Yusuf. We could actually go on and on concerning all of the issues and plaguing the economy and of course the rising food inflation and general price levels are in the country, but we are completely out of time. We want to say a very big thank you to you for all of the thoughts that you have shared and we hope that over time we'll begin to put all of this into our economy so we can actually begin to see all those changes that we desire. Once again, very big thank you to you, Mr. Mouda Yusuf. Mouda Yusuf is the CEO Center for the Promotion of Private Enterprise CPPE and that's the size of the show for today. Thank you so much for being there, for all the support and for watching. My name is Justin Akademi. And you can be part of the conversation via Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel. It's a plus Stevie Africa and plus Stevie Africa lifestyle. Many thanks for watching. I am Messy, but we'll have a great day.