The Nigerian Economic Summit Group, NESG, has warned that Nigeria’s insecurity situation suppresses any progress made towards increased food production in a bid to ease food inflation.
The NESG disclosed this in its First Quarter, 2021 Economic Report released on Sunday.
They urged the FG to take various steps to tackle the insecurity in Nigeria which has seen farmers get killed or refuse to go to their farms out of fear.
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The NESG added that improved agricultural production would be insufficient to ease inflationary pressures, except the issue of insecurity was addressed.
“Despite the reopening of the land borders, that the Nigerian government shut since October 2019, inflation reached a four-year high of 18.1% in April 2021.
“While we expect improved agricultural production in the coming months to partially ease inflationary pressures, this positive impact can be suppressed by recurring key structural bottlenecks, including insecurity in the food-producing regions, electricity tariff hike, fuel price increase and hike in transport and logistic costs,” the NESG added.
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What you should know
The World Bank also warned last week in its Nigeria report that rising levels of unemployment and underemployment are both a cause and a consequence of conflict and insecurity.
“Creating adequate productive employment is thus a priority not only for economic policy but also for national security,” the Bank urged.