The “Rice-risation” of Nigeria’s Problems, By; Yahaya Kana Ismaila
By; Yahaya Kana Ismaila
Since May 29th 2023, when President Bola Ahmed Tinubu waved his hand and declared, “Subsidy is gone,” Nigeria has embarked on an unprecedented campaign of palliative distribution.
In the aftermath of that declaration, which instantly drove up fuel prices and set off a cascade of inflationary pressures, the government’s response has been simple and consistent: distribute palliatives — mostly rice.
As the problems faced by the Nigerian masses mount in response to Tinubu’s neoliberal policies, the presidency and his allies at the sub-national levels have intensified efforts toward pouring palliatives on every issue. It’s as though they believe Nigeria’s complex economic and social crises can be solved by sacks of rice.
Rice has become the gold standard for addressing every Nigerian problem. Where citizens yearn for functional hospitals, rice is delivered. When they require good roads, rice arrives instead. As bandits attack communities and insecurity spreads like wildfire, rice is distributed. People die from disease outbreaks, and the response is — you guessed it — rice. The grain has become the political version of “gbogbo nise,” a Yoruba traditional mix rumoured to cure every ailment.
The absurdity reached new heights when rice was even imported to solve the problem of rice scarcity in Nigeria — a country that prides itself in agricultural self-sufficiency. In this bizarre turn of events, rice now seems to hold powers almost equal to the Nigerian Supreme Court — an institution known for its ability to review and reverse its own decisions.
But while rice bags continue to pile up in government warehouses and distribution centres, Nigerians have started asking hard questions. Between the huge sums purportedly spent on sharing rice — often resulting in tragic stampedes where people have lost their lives — and the retention of the so-called obnoxious fuel subsidy regime that kept costs regulated and provided a semblance of stability, which option is truly better?
Let’s look at the numbers. Under the fuel subsidy regime, Nigeria spent about ₦4.39 trillion on subsidies in 2022 alone. By mid-2023, before the subsidy removal, the projected annual subsidy cost had climbed to around ₦6.7 trillion. The government’s argument was that the subsidy had become unsustainable, eating into funds needed for infrastructure and development.
But the cost of palliatives distributed since the subsidy removal tells a different story. By December 2023, the federal government announced a ₦500 billion palliative package meant to cushion the effects of the subsidy removal. This included cash transfers, food distribution, and support for small businesses. By early 2024, additional interventions had pushed this figure beyond ₦700 billion — and that’s not accounting for state-level palliative spending. States like Lagos, Kano, and Rivers have independently rolled out multi-billion naira palliative programmes, much of it spent on, yes, rice and other foodstuffs.
When you add the costs of propping up the naira in foreign exchange markets — over $3 billion spent in 2023 alone — and the billions allocated for the yet-to-take-off Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) initiative, it becomes clear that the post-subsidy expenditures are neither efficient nor sustainable.
I’ll admit upfront that I’m no economist, and my grasp of complex financial models is limited. But even as a layman, it’s hard to ignore the signs that we’ve been travelling in circles. We removed subsidies only to replace them with expensive, poorly managed palliatives and currency interventions. We traded one form of inefficiency for another, with little to show for it in terms of real economic relief.
For instance, the Small businesses that the government claims to have supported may have either gone under or are holding on to dear life in a chokehold of unrelenting hyperinflation. Therefore, this intervention amounts to pouring water in a basket and expecting the liquid to hold.
And yet, we’re told to trust the brilliance of a first-class accounting graduate — the so-called reformer of the Lagos economy. Tinubu’s much-vaunted economic credentials and his track record in Lagos were supposed to translate into national prosperity. In reality, his strategy so far has been to reassemble his old Lagos team and pour libations of rice and cash on Nigeria’s problems.
Unfortunately, things are not going as planned. Under the new leadership of Central Bank Governor Olayemi Cardoso for instance, we’ve seen a roller coaster of policy flip-flops and mounting allegations of under-the-table payments to shadowy figures whose job descriptions remain a mystery even to senior bank officials.
What’s clear is that rice cannot build hospitals, fix roads, or secure lives and property. It cannot stabilise the naira, reduce inflation, or create jobs. As Nigerians continue to struggle under the weight of rising costs and deteriorating public services, the government’s over-reliance on rice as a catch-all solution looks more like a tragicomic farce than a well-thought-out economic policy.
The question remains: how long will this “rice-risation” of Nigeria’s problems continue? And at what cost? More correctly, when will Tinubu and his team admit that many of his policies have floundered? There’s no shame in admitting that table economic theories have failed to deliver practical gains instead of behaving, as we currently are, like bad dictionaries — always trying to explain one complex term with an even more complex one.
Yahaya writes from Kana of Nassarawa LGA in Nasarawa state and can be reached on: kanaismail@yahoo.com
