The Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise has rejected a World Bank policy proposition advocating increased importation of petroleum products and food as a solution to Nigeria's supply-side constraints, warning that the approach would carry grave consequences for the economy. The disagreement, set out in a statement signed by CPPE Chief Executive Dr Muda Yusuf, frames a central question for food policy: whether Nigeria fixes high prices by buying more from abroad or by producing more at home.
The Case Against Leaning on Imports
The CPPE's argument rests on what import surges do to the people who grow Nigeria's food. The group warned that increased importation is capable of depressing farmgate prices, discouraging investment in agriculture, eroding rural incomes and livelihoods, and undermining food-system resilience. The reasoning is that cheap imports can undercut local farmers at the farm gate, which removes the incentive to invest and plant, and leaves the country more exposed to external shocks over time rather than less.
What the Think Tank Recommends Instead
In place of import dependence, the CPPE argued that Nigeria's food security strategy should be anchored on boosting domestic agricultural productivity, strengthening value chains, and improving market access. Its priority recommendations included expanding domestic refining capacity and guaranteeing crude supply to local refineries, targeted interventions to reduce energy and logistics costs, strengthening agro-processing value chains, and promoting backward integration and local content. The CPPE summed up its position by arguing that sustainable economic transformation rests on production and value addition rather than reliance on external supply.
A Debate That Shapes the Price Tag
The dispute matters for households because the two paths point to different price futures. Imports can lower prices quickly when the naira and global markets cooperate, but they expose the country to exchange-rate swings and shipping costs, as the recent pass-through from higher crude prices and Middle East tensions to local food costs has shown. Domestic production promises more durable stability, but only if the structural bottlenecks in finance, energy, logistics, and security are resolved first. The same structural gaps are precisely what large external programmes flowing into Nigerian agriculture are now trying to close.
FoodPrices Nigeria tracks retail food prices across Lagos markets, offering the kind of verified ground-level data that can show, over time, which policy path actually moves the numbers households face.