 We're glad to know you're still there. Like we said, we're going to be looking at the fact that food prices have reason to or had reason to 26.76% in September and that's what we'll be discussing with our guest this morning. Our guest eventually is Mr. Nick Agouli, who is a public affairs analyst. Good morning and welcome to the show, Nick. Good morning and welcome to all of us. Okay, we're looking at the fact that food prices rose to 26.76% in September and this is November, October has passed. We have not had the assessment for October from the National Bureau of Statistics. Does that give you worry or is that a sign to good things to come? Do you have any hope that maybe they will come down? Are there indices that show or suggest that this is just for a time? I think the bottom line is that when something happens, like in this case food prices are rising, that is the symptom. There is a cause, there's a cause to that and until we deal with that cause, we can only be looking at the symptoms and perhaps even try to treat the symptoms. So the question is what are the causes of the rising food prices? And the causes are there for everyone to see, for even our policy makers to see. This is basic economics. They hire the demand for a product or commodity, they hire the price or the lower the supply of a product or commodity, they hire the price. So if you now want the price to fall, you have to reverse that by either increasing the supply and or reducing the demand. Now if we look at the full situation in Nigeria, we cannot reduce the demand because food is an essential commodity. Every human being must eat. If they don't eat, after a while they will be dead. So we can pretty much do nothing about the demand and as Nigeria's population is increasing, so will the demand for food be increasing. So the only thing that we can do in Nigeria about food prices is to increase the supply and to increase the supply, these are the bottlenecks. Number one, domestic supply of food. We mean more food needs to come off our farms. And the challenges with that are one, insecurity. The farmers, most of them have been driven away from their farms by bandits, kidnappers, terrorists, all sorts of marudas. These farmers are now in IDP camps producing no food. Instead, they have added themselves to the demand for food. As they are in the IDP camps, they are not producing food, they still have to eat. Now if government wants to do something about the supply of food, then they have to deal with the insecurity situation so that they can return farmers back to their farms so that they can continue the production of food. The last administration in its eight years did not succeed in doing that. I can't remember in the last eight years of the past administration where there were large-scale returns of farmers to their farms. Now the new administration has come in. About six months ago, there is nothing on the ground to show that the new administration is charting a different trajectory from their predecessors. They have set up programs of returning farmers to their farms, but that has not happened. Instead, we continue to hear every day of killings, kidnappings, and all sorts of insecurity situations. So that is the first aspect. The second aspect for the domestic supply is mechanization. Look at us now. I am sitting in London and speaking to you in Lagos. We are using technology to make that possible. If I were to set out on food to go and meet you in Lagos so that we can have this conversation, it will take the next several years and we will be in Lagos yet. What am I trying to drive at here? Machines and technology help us to do much more. But the farmers in Nigeria have not been given the machines and the technology. So they are still using their physical energies, bending down, as we speak now, farmers in their farms. They are using home and cutlass to bend down and cultivate. It is not going to yield much. If we want the farmers to multiply their farm output, we need to support them with the machines and technology so that a farmer who is currently using their physical energy and is harvesting 3 to 5 bags of rice. If we empower that farmer with machines and technology, that farmer can harvest 500 bags of rice. So imagine how much that is going to do to the supply and even have some to export. So that is on the domestic side. The domestic supply of food is hampered by insecurity and lack of technology and mechanization. Here it does now look at the other side. Because Nigeria is not producing enough food for itself, not to talk about export, we are having to complement that by importation of food. And while we are importing food, we expose ourselves to the foreign exchange dynamics. So the dollar that used to be a 115 naira, moved to about 450 and the advent of the current administration is now over 1000. Even in the so-called official market, the dollar has crossed the 1000 mark. So if we import the bag of rice at say $100, before now it would just be maybe 10,000 naira, 15,000. Today $100 is 100,000 naira for the same bag of rice. The bag of rice cost in terms of dollar has not increased though. What we are seeing is the aging rates. So the same $100 will now be 100,000 to import. And of course the importers are going to transfer that cost into the price that they will send imported food. And this is what is also causing the increase in prices of food. So how do we reverse that? The only way to reverse that is to boost local production. Because when we boost local production, we no longer have the need to be importing food. Instead, as we speak, there will be ship and ship and ship that will come to Nigeria to carry food and export. So that we can even end foreign exchange from that process. So in a nutshell, what I'm saying is that the phenomenon of food price increase can only be resolved if the causes, the causative factors are dealt with. And the causative factors are increased the supply. I mean the causative factors are the supply of food in Nigeria is not enough. And the solution is increase the supply either by domestic dealing with security and giving farmers technology and machines or reducing importation whereby the aging rates is being transferred into the prices of food. Anything short of that, the trade is going to continue. Well, increasing the domestic supply, this present administration just lifted a ban on 43 items, some of which are agricultural items that were restricted from accessing a dollar to import. So which means indirectly the ban on importation of these things have been lifted. Do you think that will translate into having more food? Food like rice for instance can now be imported more easily because effects for that importation has been lifted, the ban on effects of that importation has been lifted. Do you think that is something that will also help in making food available? The ban on importation of some of the food items has been lifted. It can only increase the supply of food at a very high cost because let all be honest with ourselves. I believe that the people in government are smart enough to know that the ban on the importation of these food items didn't mean that the food items were not being imported before. The reason was that we have two foreign exchange markets in Nigeria. We have the so-called official market and we have the parallel market or what people the regulatory say is the black market. The ban meant you cannot go to the official market and look for dollars to bring in those items. That was the import of the ban. But if you were able to source your foreign exchange independently from the parallel market you could have gone to bring those things in. Now lifting the ban meant the importers can approach the central bank and try to get the dollars through the official market so that they can go and bring these things in. The bad news is that the central bank does not have those dollars. Unfortunately for the central bank of Nigeria, the dollar is not an era that they can wake up and start printing. The central bank of Nigeria does not print the dollar. They depend on we earning the dollars before the dollars we come into the conference of the central bank. And the central bank of Nigeria does not have the dollars. That is why they cannot even intervene in the foreign exchange market as they used to do. Because the biggest source of the dollars that we're coming into the conference of the central bank we're coming from crude oil exports. And the NNPC, the government behemoth that is responsible for that has not been bringing the dollars back to the NNPC conference. Because as the oil prices are rising that same NNPC is not refining petroleum products locally. So they are having to use all the monies that they have from crude oil sellers to go and buy crude diesel and all of that and bring it to Nigeria. So this thing is that the central bank is very sure that the central bank governor is a smart man. The minister for finance is smart people. They know that they are just deceiving themselves. I can't even say that they are deceiving themselves because if you leave the bank where will the central bank see the dollar to give to people to go and bring those things in? They don't have it because if they have the dollars they would have cleared the backlog of foreign exchange needs that the central bank, especially for the airlines. You know, the government announced with Euphoria that we have resolved all the issues with UAE and Emirates Airlines we start coming to Nigeria. Has an Emirates aircraft been in Nigeria since? The answer is no. Why? Because the central bank does not have dollars to give to Emirates. The ticket said that they made in Nigeria. The central bank does not have the money to bring into the market in the foreign exchange market as they used to do. So the import of that lifting of the bank is actually zero. It makes no sense because if you go and free from A now that give me dollars, central bank give me dollars. Let me go and import toothpick which is also on that list. They won't have it to give you. If you say okay from A, give me a dollar and import rise. They won't have it to give you. So instead of the government looking at importation it's the government not looking at domestic production of food where we have comparative advantage over any other place. Do you understand? So the government needs to focus and know what needs to happen and I've already provided the template. Two things they need to sort out. They need to sort out security for the farmers and they need to give the farmers machines so that the farmers will move from manual level to produce food to mechanization because it is that manual level that is a discouraging factor for young men. A young man doesn't see himself that this money will carry a goal and won't stop bending down to cultivate. If you gave him a tractor, I'm telling you he will sit on the tractor and cultivate in ten minutes what it will take him five years to do. That is the essence of technology. In ten minutes a tractor can cultivate what a farmer will need five years of his manual effort to contribute. Anybody can check out those parts. And so if the young people produce so much with tractors then they have so much money to be made from agriculture while we don't want to be doing many jobs in cities and towns. So this is the issue. Go back to the basics and do things from the beginning. You can't come and start fighting food prices when you are not dealing with the costs. Okay, let's just by way of emphasis because you've provided solutions and there's hardly anything that can come that has not been spoken. But the previous government banned forex access because of a lot of things. They wanted the local production to go really high but they seem to have failed. Why do you think they failed to make local production so much to be sufficient for us? Because we actually have the land. We have the manpower. We have everything that we need to be. We have the fertile ground even. But I see no reason why we failed. So what do you think was the reason, the previous administration failed because everything we are experiencing now came as a result of what happened in the last administration. We are lacking food now. It's not because it was not planted this year but because of how it was planted last year and so many other things. So where did they fail and what can this present government do differently that will make sure that we achieve that. They failed for two reasons. Number one, they did not deal with the security situation that the farmers faced. So millions of farmers continue to be in RDP camps. How can they be producing food when they are in RDP camps? The second reason they failed is they did not provide the farmers with the enabling environment to cultivate a lot of food. Farmers are still using their brute energy bending down we go and cut glass. If you give that farmer a tractor that farmer will produce in one year what they would have produced in their lifetime using their brute energy. You already mentioned that we have comparative advantage and it's true. Nigeria has one of the most fertile lands in the world. I have been to a few countries, I can assure you of that. Look, if you are on a flight from Europe on a flight from Europe to Africa we will most likely cross the Mediterranean Sea. As you fly over the Mediterranean Sea and you now come on the African continent if you look down you will see that it's the desert. Total desert, no trees, no water, nothing. Just red soil. That's what you see on the ground. You will fly for about three hours in the air it's just that desert you are seeing. Then, immediately you now come to northern Nigeria. Miraculously, as God has done it for us. That red patch of soil you saw all the way because flushed green land from northern Nigeria down to the Atlantic Ocean. Green land, pure green land where anything you plant will germinate and grow. That's number one. Number two, Nigeria has a perfect climate for agriculture because plants need the sunshine to manufacture their food and grow. Nigeria is assured of at least eight to ten hours of pure sunshine every day. Look, I am here in London now and wish I could have turned my camera for you to see outside. It's not yet bright. Maybe some people don't even understand why the UK shifts their clock. Like now, we are seven o'clock something. Nigeria is eight o'clock something. Last Sunday, they moved the clock back and said UK was at eight o'clock in the morning. UK became seven o'clock but fear they moved the clock physically back. Do you know the reason for that? The reason for that is that we are in winter now and during winter, you don't see the sun much. You don't see the sun. So by seven o'clock, it is still very dark. Very dark. So how can children come out in the dark to go to school? So when there's Nazis here that say, that seven o'clock is Nazis o'clock. So that it gives the children one more hour at home to try and see if there will be daylight before they go to school. How did the reason for that? They are struggling. They can see the sun in the real winter in December by December January. Look, as I am sitting here, the sun will rise from the east and set in the east. The sun will never come across overhead and set in the west. Both people in Europe, they don't see the sun in winter like that. That's why it's cold. It's a lack of sun that makes it very cold. And so plants can't do well again. Actually, that is what Americans call the fall season. What does fall mean? The leaves on plants fall off. But not seeing the sun. In Europe, they call it autumn. Autumn is a season before winter. You will not see any leaves again on trees and plants. For lack of the sun, Nigeria has that sun 8 to 10 hours every day. Imagine what our agriculture will be. You mentioned manpower. You know, Nigeria has a very youthful population ready to work. If you announce a job, they can see now. You will see the number of graduates and young people that are going to apply for that job. How to work? We take support in the agricultural sector. You know, Nigeria has sufficient amount of rainfall. Sufficient amount of rainfall every year. There are nations that have drought. They don't see the rain. You can manufacture the rain. God gives us the rain. Meanwhile, apart from that, I have traveled widely in Nigeria. There is no community in Nigeria that you see that does not have a fresh water river close by. In most communities in Nigeria, you won't travel one kilometer before you see a fresh water river, even if it is extreme. It is the opportunity for agriculture. If the government were serious, the government would be providing a neighboring environment for us to be damming those rivers and streams. Once you dam that river, the mass body of water that we collect, you will get irrigation out of it. That means you'll be able to farm all year round. That means you'll be able to farm. So a farmer that is currently producing rice once a year can produce rice twice or three times a year. Plant, grow, harvest, three times with irrigation. You will have fishing. You will have pipe or water. You will have hydroelectricity. And you will have tourism. But simply damming a river. So you ask yourself, all the local government chairmen that we have, they come and stay for many years. Governors come, drive sari up and down. They are not rolling up their sleeves to do the real hard work. If governments were damming their rivers by now, almost all the states in Nigeria would have dam all their rivers. And you can only see how much agriculture that is going to support with machines and everything. So it's not going to be a miracle. If we don't deal with the causative factors that are making full supply in Nigeria to be short, the price will never come down. It's not about miracle. Even if you like, we can set up churches on every street and have mugs in every corner. The price of food will never come down unless we go and do the basics. That's just the bottom line. Okay. When you were talking about fertile ground, I was just thinking about some things. When I was in school at one point, I took a yam from my farm to the school to sell. And the people did not buy it. After two weeks, I found out that they thought that was a human being or something, or maybe I had used some rituals to make it grow that big. Because in my village, you can have yams actually as tall as my chest level and almost as fat as a five or seven-year-old child. So I'm thinking about how this can be used to our advantage. The fertile land. But yet, we don't find any enabling environment as you put it. Now, let me just ask you this question. We are wrapping up, so be very brief about it. You talked about insecurity as one of the reasons why we couldn't get the things right last administration or last year, not just last year, but in the last administration of eight years. That's one of the biggest reasons why we couldn't get everything, last administration is trying to tackle insecurity. And I've gone ahead to even have a supplementary budget for 2023 so that they can cover a lot of things and chief among those things is security. So they're going to buy more firepower and so many other things to fight security. Do you think that will help more firepower, bigger firepower, better firepower will help us fight insecurity? So let me just talk about that yam thing. Now I'm from Benway State. In Benway, we make heaps first. We make heaps before planting yam. Same as my community. Yeah, but I went to school in Benin. I went to University of Benin. When I arrived in Benin, to my shock, it was one of the cultural shock that I had. They don't make heaps in Benin or in those things. They just plant yam in the ground. Plant them, open the ground and put the yam inside. Imagine. So when they put the yam in the ground, they just put stakes and then the yam continues to grow on those stakes. By the time they have this yam, you will not believe that the yams are even bigger than the world. We use heaps. That is the opportunity that Nigeria has. Now talking about security, let us not forget for the past how many years are predating, predating especially Opus and Joe government. The security is being given the highest budget allocation year in year out. Go and check out the budget numbers. Security takes the highest chunk of the budget. In fact, it is the budget allocation to security that makes budget allocation to other critical sectors like education, healthcare, infrastructure to be small. Go and check it. How has been happening to that project? Go. There is grand corruption. I am not accusing anybody of anything. The details are there. The details are there. In fact, I was listening to a video. I was listening to a video two days ago of a Major General in the Army. This man was the Managing Director of Army Properties. Either Army Properties or Army Holdings. In fact, in his good matchup. This man, we carry 1.7 million dollars of Army money and put in his personal account. I am not making it up. The video is there. The Army people are in their uniform trying their colleague. We know how the Buhari government just started a small probe and we saw the feat that was coming out of Defense Equators and the other tri-services. So, it is not about budgetary allocation. The government can, if they like, they can transfer the entirety of Nigeria's budget and give to the security architecture in Nigeria. But if they don't enforce it to ensure that the monies are committed to what they should be used for, there is not going to be any difference. So for us, I don't think it's about budgetary allocation. It's just about the commander-in-chief living up to his responsibility and duties and the budgetary allocations made to security are actually used for security. We saw situations in the past where even the military, they were going to buy a helicopter. You bought a helicopter of this model. You went and bought a rotor of a different model and they take the money. So, if the Chinese government wants to show a clear or remarkable departure from his predecessors, let him just ensure that the real allocation for security is being used for security. Is that going to happen all the time with that? All the time with that. We'd like to thank you, Nika Gule, for coming on the show this morning and helping us make sense of what is going on. It's always a pleasure having you on our show. Thank you for your time. Thank you and have a nice day. Happy new month, by the way. Same to you. A public affairs commentator. It was talking to us from the UK and this is where eventually we wrap it up on the show this morning. We hope to connect with you again tomorrow for another edition of The Breakfast. In the meantime, on behalf of the entire team, my name is Nyaam Gule at Gadji, saying thank you for being there.