January 23, 2022

You don’t play politics with people’s stomach. Displaying bags of paddy rice when the people are hungry, cannot access and afford same rice is the most ill-advised political stunt with the imprimatur of hell and the seal of satanism.

Nigerian politicians are playing politics with Nigerians. They have always done that, unchallenged. But to do so with the people’s stomach is not only wicked but morally devious. This time round, it’s politics of rice pyramids.  The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has been on an ego-trip in Abuja over beautifully arrayed and painstakingly arranged pyramidal mounds of bags of rice now popular by the phrase ‘rice pyramids.’

President Muhammadu Buhari was on hand to launch the bags of paddy rice in an elaborate ceremony in Abuja courtesy of Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN) and Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN. The show was regal and has all the props and optics of propaganda and so much of politics.

First, it was needless stacking up rice in pyramids enforced by wooden scaffolds and other structural elements. It’s sheer politics to coin such dubious expression as ‘rice pyramid’. It’s even more dubious for Aminu Goronyo, the Chairman of Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN), to describe it as the largest rice pyramid in the world. Such expression and hollow ejaculatory conceitedness from a farmer portray the Abuja show as a political rally full of vainglory but empty of substance. You don’t play politics with people’s stomach. Displaying bags of paddy rice when the people are hungry, cannot access and afford same rice is the most ill-advised political stunt with the imprimatur of hell and the seal of satanism.

China with annual production of 148,300,000 metric tonnes of rice is the largest producer of rice in the world. She’s followed by India (120,000,000 tonnes), Bangladesh (35,300,000), Indonesia (34,900,000), Vietnam: 27,100,000, Thailand: 18,600,000, Burma: 12,900,000, Philippines: 12,000,000, Japan with 7,620,000. None of these countries display their rice in pyramids. Never! They do not play politics with their rice and with their citizens.

In most parts of Asia, rice is their staple, eaten in different forms. They produce for export and domestic consumption. They have no need to import from elsewhere because they produce enough and their rice is both accessible and affordable for their citizens. But they do not make a show of it. They don’t roll out red carpets to celebrate just one million bags of rice. Rice business is serious business and should never be dragged into the cesspool of politics.  If the top rice producers in the world do not conjure rice pyramids, rice hills or rice mountains just to massage their ego, it makes no sense for Nigerian government officials and farmers to dance Skelewu and Azonto and pose for camera on a background of inaccessible and unaffordable rice. Optical illusion is as deceptive as a mirage. Nigerians don’t deserve neither of them on matters of the stomach.

And whereas the APC government played politics with the rice pyramids, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), obviously still bileful from its defeat at the polls in 2015, switched to an even more noxious political frequency when it mocked the rice pyramids dismissing it as “another shameless media stunt to again beguile Nigerians ahead of 2023 elections.”

Nigeria is bleeding. The citizens are hungry. More people are daily shoved into the poverty pit. They can’t breathe because government policies are choking them. They can’t eat because prices of food stuff especially the home-grown rice that government baits them with on television have hit celestial height.

And whereas the APC government played politics with the rice pyramids, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), obviously still bileful from its defeat at the polls in 2015, switched to an even more noxious political frequency when it mocked the rice pyramids dismissing it as “another shameless media stunt to again beguile Nigerians ahead of 2023 elections.”

National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Debo Ologunagba, said in a statement that “Nigerians are already aware and the pictures abound of how the APC and its government “create” fake pyramids of rice with sandbags and re-bagged rice stacked on pyramid shaped wooden structures as busted in an APC-controlled state in the Southwest in 2018.

“Of course, there is nothing to celebrate in the APC pyramid of lies in Abuja. It is rather shameful that APC leaders are again ridiculing President Muhammadu Buhari by making him unveil pyramids of allegedly imported foreign rice which are re-bagged as locally produced, just to create an impression of a boost in local production under his watch.

“If indeed, there is a boost in local production of rice as the APC wants Nigerians to believe, how come the price of rice has not come down but continues to soar from about N8,000 per bag which the PDP handed over to the APC in 2015 to about N30,000 per bag today?”

He said much more. While I do not endorse the lavish show of vainglory displayed by the APC government, I do not think that the PDP has any moral badge to dismiss the rice pyramids as lies. To do so is to play extreme politics with the emotions and sensitivity of Nigerians. PDP was in power for 16 years. It was a period of cornucopia, thanks to prosperity from crude oil sales. But the same PDP did little to diversify the economy. It invested little in agriculture, paid scant attention to food security. Only on paper did the PDP government diversify the economy. Naira enjoyed comparative good value against the dollar not because PDP revived and restored the once flourishing primary sector but because it was busy defending the naira from excess dollar receipts from crude oil sales. That was poor economics.

There are challenges that dog rice farming, making it expensive to get rice from farm to the table. At between N28,000 to N30,000 per 50kg bag of properly destoned rice, it is too expensive and unaffordable by a majority of Nigerians. This is what should engage both the PDP and APC: How to bring down the price of rice and make it easily available without discouraging the farmers.

Yes, the PDP floated the idea of the Anchor Borrowers Programme (ABP) which gave wings to agriculture in the APC era through the CBN but the same PDP left the programme to gather mould in the file, just the same way it initiated the BVN (Bank Verification Number) but lacked the courage and character to implement it. The PDP should keep quiet because it wasted the golden years. Truth is, the Buhari government in barely seven years has surpassed the PDP government in agriculture and food security. There is really no basis for comparison. Under the PDP, rice importation was rife. Presidents’ wives were importing rice, governors’ wives refused to be outdone in the import racket.

But both parties should spare Nigerians this baseless and insipid politics. There are challenges that dog rice farming, making it expensive to get rice from farm to the table. At between N28,000 to N30,000 per 50kg bag of properly destoned rice, it is too expensive and unaffordable by a majority of Nigerians. This is what should engage both the PDP and APC: How to bring down the price of rice and make it easily available without discouraging the farmers. The other challenge is sustainable funding. Most of the rice farmers under the ABP took loans from CBN, but many are not paying back their loan and this has affected fresh applicants for loans. A good N70 billion is stuck in the hands of some farmers who have refused to pay back their loans. This affects negatively the revolving life of the ABP: If the old loanees don’t pay, fresh applicants can access loans. The Buhari government should work around these challenges just so the home-grown rice would be both affordable and available. The PDP should do what credible oppositions do: Offer superior ideas to the APC that would heal and help the process. Both parties should engage in noble ideals rather than tumble and rumble in the gutter of politics of rice pyramids.

Author: Ken Ugbechie

• First published in Sunday Sun