The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has said the latest inflation figures released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), which showed that Nigeria’s headline inflation rate moderated marginally from 15.91 per cent in June to 15.43 per cent in July, contradicted President Bola Tinubu’s claims about economic progress.

ADC, in a statement by the National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji, said the report supported an earlier one by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) that 35 million Nigerians face acute food insecurity, with millions of children facing malnutrition.

“That is the economy Nigerians are experiencing under Bola Tinubu’s APC,” ADC stated.

The party wondered why Nigerians still find it increasingly difficult to afford food if the Tinubu administration claimed that the government’s economic reforms are working.

According to the ADC, a responsible government would be willing to admit that it has reached the limits of its capacity and that even its best approach has not yielded the desired results.

The party told APC that it has done its best within the limits of its chosen approach and should therefore admit its failure rather than attempt to hoodwink the people who can no longer be deceived by the government’s “things are getting better” propaganda.

“Hunger cannot be wished away by numbers on paper,” it stated.

ADC said food security should be treated as a national security issue, and added that the government should move “from scattered agricultural interventions to an integrated and targeted national food production and distribution strategy focused on the staples Nigerians consume most.”

The party also wants the Federal Government to tackle the cost of production and stated that farmers cannot produce affordable food when the cost of fertiliser, seeds, machinery, diesel, transportation and finance keeps rising.

ADC said its government would use targeted support to reduce these costs, rather than relying primarily on general interventions whose benefits may never reach the farmer, if it wins the next presidential election

The party assured that the safety and security of farmers and farm settlements would be the bedrock of its food supply policy.

“There is little point providing farmers with inputs if insecurity prevents them from reaching their farms, harvesting their crops or transporting them to market,” ADC said.

The party stated that its government would establish a transparent national food reserve and strategic buffer system capable of releasing essential staples into the market when prices spike, while purchasing from Nigerian farmers when prices collapse.

“This would protect both consumers and producers,” ADC said, adding that the Tinubu administration might point to falling headline inflation as evidence that its reforms are working, but Nigerians have a different opinion.

“The responsibility of government is not to explain that contradiction away; it is to fix it,” the party added.

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