Sanusi: Food imports wiped out rice mills, worsened bad loans

The Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi, has warned that Nigeria’s decision to open its market to food imports, including rice from Thailand, wiped out local rice mills and left banks grappling with bad loans from investments in the agricultural value chain.

He said that although the policy helped lower food prices following the removal of the petrol subsidy, it undermined domestic production and threatened long-term food security, urging the government to support poor households without exposing local farmers and businesses to overwhelming competition from imports.

The emir spoke at the Sustainable Table Series held at Federal Palace Hotel, Victoria Island, Lagos on Thursday, where he highlighted the need for governments to prioritise nutrition, education, infrastructure and productive investment to improve economic development.

The event, with the theme: “Leading the Sustainable Development Agenda: People, Planet and Development,” also had in attendance Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu represented by his Special Adviser on Sustainable Development Goals, Dr Oreoluwa Finnih-Awokoya and the convener, Kayode Olaniyan.

On the economy, the Emir criticised Nigeria’s approach to food affordability, warning that policies aimed at reducing food prices through imports could undermine domestic agricultural production and threaten long-term food security.

He recalled that following the removal of the petrol subsidy and the subsequent increase in food prices, the government opened the market to food imports, including rice from Thailand.

Although the measure helped reduce food prices, he questioned its long-term consequences for domestic producers, investors and lenders.

He said, “All the rice mills that people built were wiped out. All the loans that the banks gave people in the agriculture chain, bad loans.”

Sanusi argued that making food affordable for poor households should not come at the expense of domestic production, adding that the government could support vulnerable citizens without exposing local farmers and agricultural businesses to overwhelming competition from imports.

“There’s nothing wrong with making food cheap for the poor, but there are ways of making food cheap or subsidising the poor on food without opening up the market to this floodgate of imports,” he said.

He maintained that Nigeria must develop its capacity to produce food rather than depend on imports, warning that short-term interventions could discourage investment in agriculture and weaken the country’s ability to achieve sustainable food security.

The Emir also questioned Nigeria’s infrastructure priorities, arguing that governments often concentrated on visible projects such as flyovers and underpasses while rural communities lacked basic bridges connecting them to markets, schools and healthcare facilities.

Sanusi said a greater proportion of public funds spent on urban infrastructure could be directed towards connecting rural communities to essential services and economic opportunities.

According to him, “roads should connect farmers to markets and workers to jobs, while investments in electricity and other infrastructure should be planned around the needs of businesses and communities.”

The Emir also raised concerns about Nigeria’s debt-servicing burden, claiming that the country spent about 100 per cent of its revenue on debt servicing.

He said fiscal reforms were necessary but stressed that they should be accompanied by transparency, accountability and measures to protect vulnerable households.

Sanusi argued that citizens would be more willing to accept difficult economic reforms when they could see that the burden was fairly shared and that public savings translated into better services and opportunities.

He said Africa’s development challenge was not merely the availability of resources, policies or capital, but the ability to convert them into productive capacity, capable institutions and broadly shared prosperity.

“The next decade must be judged by delivery, not by declarations,” he said.

The emir also raised the alarm over child malnutrition in Kano State, saying more than 50 per cent of children under five are malnourished, while about 40 per cent of women of childbearing age are anaemic.

He warned that malnutrition threatened Nigeria’s human capital development, stressing that the country could not build a productive workforce without addressing nutritional deficiencies among children from pregnancy through their early years.

He said, “In my state, Kano, over 50 per cent of under-fives are malnourished. About 40 per cent of women of childbearing age are anaemic. With malnutrition, the brain is not properly formed; that is not the human capital that you want for development.”

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Sanusi expressed concern that interventions often focused on identifying malnourished children after the damage had occurred rather than preventing nutritional deficiencies during pregnancy and early childhood.

He asked, “But who is looking at malnutrition? Who is getting to them in the villages? Who’s getting to the women when they get pregnant to make sure they eat what they’re supposed to eat?

“What we’re doing today is we count them after they become malnourished, and we have these horrible statistics year after year. There’s a lot of malnutrition; there’s no food in the villages.

“And again, you cannot produce youth who have been malnourished, who don’t have the brains and expect these youth to be major contributors to human capital.”

According to him, addressing malnutrition required sustained interventions beginning during pregnancy and continuing after childbirth to ensure that children receive adequate nutrition during their formative years.

“So it begins from conception, the moment a woman is pregnant, we have to be there until the baby is born, and then the baby comes around, and then with proper nutrition, we build the base for the youth,” Sanusi said.

The Emir linked the challenge to Nigeria’s broader development prospects, noting that a young population would only become an economic advantage if citizens were healthy, educated, skilled and productively employed.

He said foundational education must equip children with literacy, numeracy and the ability to think, reason and solve problems, adding that education should prepare young people to participate meaningfully in a changing economy.

“Then you have foundational learning, children needing to acquire literacy, numeracy, and the ability to think, reason, and solve problems,” Sanusi said.

The monarch also called for greater attention to technical education, saying it should be respected as a pathway to skilled employment and enterprise rather than treated as an inferior alternative to conventional academic education.

Speaking, Sanwo-Olu said his administration was pursuing a development agenda that placed people, environmental protection and economic prosperity at the centre of its policies.

Sanwo-Olu said Lagos had to balance its rapid growth with the need to protect the environment and improve residents’ quality of life.

He said the state’s N4.4tn 2026 budget of shared prosperity allocated N2.338tn to capital projects, while the Lagos Education Access Fund was being implemented with a target of reaching more than 200,000 children within three years.

According to him, the government’s development priorities also include equipping young people with skills for emerging industries and creating opportunities for women and small business owners to participate more fully in the economy.

Sanwo-Olu urged businesses, financial institutions, universities and civil society organisations to work with the government to advance sustainable development.

He noted that the global Sustainable Development Goals had a 2030 deadline, making implementation, accountability and measurable results increasingly urgent.

Event convener, Olaniyan, called for greater investment in energy infrastructure, technology, Artificial Intelligence, and human capital towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

“There are a lot of opportunities that we need to mobilise capital into. The next stage is moving from knowledge to implementation.

“We need to mobilise more capital towards implementation of the SDGs. We also need to look at how to store food, reduce post-harvest losses and reduce food inflation,” Olaniyan said.

The event also featured interventions from experts across various fields, including Dapo Otunla, Ademola Ogunbanjo, Rolake Akinkugbe-Filani, Uche Uzoebo, and Sam Faleye, on the importance of access to capital and attaining sustainable development.