The inability of Nigeria to feed itself in the face of rising population and over $6.7 trillion natural resources may increase the food import burden to $110 billion in the next two years, the President of African Development Bank Group (AfDB), Dr Akinwumi Adesina, said yesterday.
Barely three months after Nigeria through the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited took a $3 billion crude-backed loan from the African Export–Import Bank, Adesina, who spoke at the Public Lecture marking The Guardian’s 40th Anniversary, kicked against such debts, saying they remained non-transparent, expensive and would not help Africa.
Amidst rising closure of factories across Nigeria and suffocating small businesses, Adesina also said Nigeria and Africa must begin to think more strategically to lift its people out of extreme poverty. He attributed the widespread poverty to Africa’s export of raw materials, which he described as “the door to poverty”. The desired prosperity, he said, could only come through value addition and industrialisation.
Although he noted that AfDB has invested over $8 billion in agriculture over the past seven years, which has improved food security for 250 million people, over 283 million people still go hungry to beds on the continent.
Already, the United Nations said 37 per cent of children or six million children are stunted (chronically malnourished or low height for their age).Adesina insisted that the continent must do more than simply produce more food and agricultural commodities, stressing that Africa, which accounts for 65 per cent of the production of cocoa, receives only two per cent of the $120 billion chocolate industry.
“While African farmers languish in poverty, chocolate processors smile to the bank. One is condemned to penury and the other creates wealth,” he said.The ex-agriculture minister, while rejecting the notion that countries become poor when they have natural resources, said the so-called resource curse has not applied to Saudi Arabia, Qatar or Norway.
“These are all nations that are rich in natural resources that have served them well. Why should it be different for Africa’s resource-rich states? It all comes down to governance, transparency, accountability and the sound management of our natural resources.