‘Rice, rice everywhere’ but little to eat

The recent vacuous parade of rice pyramids in Abuja through a collaboration between the Central Bank of Nigeria CBN and the Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN), calls to mind the immortal line “Water water everywhere but none to drink”, in the poem ‘The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner’, which was written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The Abuja ‘rice show’ was an initiative to prove that the Anchor Borrowers Scheme launched by the CBN to facilitate access to loans for farmers, was working, and the bags so displayed were evidence of the dividends of the enterprise. Among the striking features of the Abuja show is that while Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner lamented over the handicap of lacking drinkable water in the vast expanse of the salty ocean, the Abuja show was a contrived act of make-believe to mis-present falsehood as truth by unscrupulous government officials, with unbridled impunity. Thousands of bags of un-milled rice were ferried at great cost from various rice farms across the country, to of all places Abuja, just to demonstrate through photo ops, that the country was winning the war on food insecurity, even through increasing rice production. 

 Ordinarily, nobody would begrudge the CBN and RIFAN or any other agency or outfit for that matter, to celebrate progress in its enterprise – especially when such a feat fits into the objectives of national development. In that context therefore, the CBN and RIFAN deserve commendation for any outstanding progress made in furthering the national interest. For clarification of the dilemma of the country as far as rice production is concerned, it needs to be admitted that expanding the threshold of rice production in Nigeria remains a cardinal feature of the national food security agenda of any government including the present Muhamadu Buhari administration.  The Senate Committee on Agriculture considered in December 2021 that the country produced about 5 million metric tonnes of rice annually but consumed over 6.7 million metric tonnes for the same period.  This implies that about 1.7 – 2 million metric tonnes constitute the deficit which is procured through importation or smuggling.  Hence the bid by CBN and RIFAN to show-case their success story is commendable, but for the fact of where, how and when the show-off was executed.

 Firstly was that Abuja was hardly the venue for showcasing improvement in rice production in Nigeria, except as it has panned out that the intention was simply to massage the ego of designated government officials that their ‘boys were working’. Rice for Nigerians is a staple food whose price in the open market has escalated out of the reach of most citizens. Presently the market price for a 50 kg bag of local rice is around N25,000.00, while that for the imported one is N35,000.00 depending on location of the selling point. With most Nigerians living below the poverty line, it is not surprising that even this staple has escaped from the reach of the poor in the country. Any wonder that there is so much despair in the land? The story of the intended actualization of a rice revolution by the CBN/RIFAN collaboration would have been more telling if it had featured some increase in supply stocks in the open market with resultant drop in price.

Another incongruity with the Abuja rice show was how it was executed. Whereas it may have been intended to showcase the feat with pyramids given the symbolism inherent in that concept, the hollow interior of the pyramids more than betrayed the organisers as less than sincere in their intentions, as they would have expected to be seen as. The picture they tried to paint was that of pyramids of humongous sacks of rice stacked on top of each other. However, what the world saw a anticlimax of a series of wooden skeletons of pyramids cladded skin deep sparingly, with sacks of unmilled rice. In a saner clime, all officials of government who engaged in this fraudulent activity would have been cooling their heels behind bars. By now. But this is Nigeria, where different rules apply. After all, was it not President Muhamadu Buhari himself who commissioned the project? 

 Yet another disturbing aspect of the rice show is the timing or when it took place. Nigerians have just come out a festive season being the year end celebrations for Christmas and New Year, during which rice remained the traditional culinary item of choice. Subjecting them through failed economic policies of government to have purchased rice at cut throat prices, and only to be shown the same food in a semblance of surplus, is simply taunting the society. ‘Where was all this rice throughout the festive period’, remains the topical question to ask.

Incidentally, the Abuja rice show has come and gone leaving significant lessons for the citizenry. From the run of the spectacle, it is time that Nigerians need to stand against the growing freedom of guile in the public space, whereby government officials deploy the public largesse to hoodwink the wider cross section of society to secure personal advantages. It should not be out of place that relevant anti-graft agencies intervened to ask questions, pursuant to establishing if public funds were deployed to execute this show, which has widely earned the reference of a heist.

Even more outrageous to any Nigerian patriot is the fact that even the President may have unwittingly commissioned the exercise oblivious of the fact that the entire enterprise was as hollow as the trumped up pyramids themselves.