“The policy on the Naria redesign had an impact on local farmers who didn’t have access to cash when they were about to plant…”
The Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Abubakar Kyari, has disclosed that the naria redesign of late 2022 and early 2023 had a significant impact on local rural farmers’ access to cash to use for cultivation which has played a major role in food shortages currently being experienced in the country.
The minister gave this disclosure in a sectoral debate organized by the House of Representatives to address Nigerians on key national issues regarding food insecurity and food availability saying farmers’ inability to get cash had a robust impact on production.
“In 2022 the policy on the Naria redesign had an impact on local farmers who didn’t have access to cash. In 2023 when they were about to plant, cash was not available which had an impact on the production and that is the effect of what we are currently facing,” the minister said.
On his part, the Comptroller of the Nigerian Custom Service, Bashir Adeniyi, stated that many Nigerians do not have sufficient food for consumption and access to food but that Customs was engaging in a lot of activities in responding to food emergencies adding that it is within the framework of the service to tackle food insecurity.
“Many Nigerians do not have enough to eat. So many of them lack the physical access. A good number of them lack the economic access to food, not to talk of whether they are eating the right kind of food. So this calls for our concerted action. We are currently in the middle of a number of operations, we are carrying out measures in response to this emergency,” he said.
OrderPaper recalls that the former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, had pushed for the naira redesign as part of the economic policies to strengthen the naira and prevent vote buying.