These Presidency’s claims to NYTimes over Nigeria hunger don’t add up

The Presidency scrambled a response Monday after the New York Times published a damning coverage of Nigeria’s worst cost-of-living crisis in decades, dismissing the report as “jaundiced.”

In its article, The Times provides stark details of hunger and hardship that have left Nigerians bankrupt and describes the country’s leadership as “neglecting and predatory.”

The report speaks of how people known for their resourcefulness have turned paupers overnight as a result of skyrocketing inflation and naira in free-fall.

“The pain is widespread. Unions strike to protest salaries of around $20 a month. People die in stampedes, desperate for free sacks of rice. Hospitals are overrun with women wracked by spasms from calcium deficiencies,” it says in the June 11 piece.

It shows how hospitals in Kano are seeing increased cases of hypocalcaemia caused by malnutrition, because people are unable to afford food. Since they are poor, a doctor recommends strange sources of nutrition to help: Baobab leaves or tiger nuts and boiled-up bones.

An outraged Presidency said the report was “all gloom and doom” and sought to dismiss it as a lie.

Bayo Onanuga, who speaks for President Bola Tinubu, said in a rebuttal that the article “reflected the typical predetermined, reductionist, derogatory, and denigrating way foreign media establishments reported African countries for several decades.”

He argued that the Tinubu administration did not create the problems of today, he inherited them.

Takeaways and Contexts

We provide some contexts and examine how truthful some of the Presidency’s claims are:

1.) The Presidency says the “inflationary rate is slowing down, as shown in the figures released by the National Bureau of Statistics for April.” It did not say if it referred to annual or monthly price changes. Inflation is typically measured annually. In this case, a claim that prices in April 2024 over April 2023 slowed down would be false. Annual inflation in April 2023 was 22.22%, far lower than 33.69% reported in April 2024.

The presidency would only be correct if we consider monthly NBS-reported monthly inflation, which began to trend downwards in March from an eight-month peak of 3.12% in February. Monthly change in April was 2.29% and in May, announced yesterday, it fell further to 2.14%.

2.) The Presidency claims Mr Tinubu did not create the economic problems Nigeria faces today. That’s untrue. While the administration inherited economic problems, it was its offhand and uncoordinated removal of petrol subsidy and floating of the naira almost simultaneously that created the nation’s worst economic crisis in a generation. The biggest margin of annual inflation in years occurred between June and July soon after the implementation of these policies, when the annual inflation change between the two months jumped by 1.29%.

Almost all of Nigeria’s current crisis, including the government’s surreptitious and untransparent resumption of subsidy payment are rooted in the floating of the naira. The government can argue about not having foreign reserves to “defend” the currency, but it’s enough to say that Nigeria’s non-productive economic fundamentals has not, and cannot, support complete a floating until tomorrow. As it stands, the government still pays a lot more in subsidy because the dollar has become more expensive to import fuel, while people are suffering damage done by weakening the naira too. The government is also, if only occasionally, defending the naira with the same scarce forex.

3.) The Presidency says the government is working hard to address food inflation with increased agricultural production. What exactly is Nigeria producing more in response to the calamitous food crisis? Is it cassava mentioned in the New York Times report? Rice? Poultry or wheat that the government continues to charge 85% tariff on import despite local production being less than 5%? All staples have risen by over 100% in the last year and there are no areas in the country where food production is reported to have risen. Currently there is nationwide scarcity of tomato that has driven traders to buy from Cameroon.

A leaked plan to for emergency food imports and tariff removal was disowned by the government last week. Meanwhile, that approach has already been implemented in Senegal by its new government that is less than three months in office, while the Tinubu administration continues to plan and set committees as citizens suffer.

The presidency cites dodgy examples of federal and state governments “working assiduously” to produce food in abundance:

“Some state governments, such as Lagos and Akwa Ibom, have set up retail shops to sell raw food items to residents at a lower price than the market price,” it says.

Residents of Akwa Ibom have told Pluboard this hasn’t worked in any way to ease their hardships. Food prices in this state are some of the highest in country. Two cups of garri in Uyo, the capital, sell for N500 as against N150 a year ago.

The presidency also says: “The Tinubu government, in November last year, in consonance with its food emergency declaration, invested heavily in dry-season farming, giving farmers incentives to produce wheat, maize, and rice. The CBN has donated N100 billion worth of fertiliser to farmers, and numerous incentives are being implemented. In the western part of Nigeria, the six governors have announced plans to invest massively in agriculture.”

None of these show tangible actions or results to make food available and reduce hunger.