Experts proffer ways out of rising inflation in Nigeria

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Some economic experts have urged the Federal Government to tackle the food insecurity challenges and check the depreciating level of the Naira fuelling the inflation.

According to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Professor Bright Eregha, a lecturer of Economics at Pan Atlantic University, in separate interviews on Monday, in Lagos, said the government could adopt innovative ways of tackling insecurity challenges, fuelling food shortages.

According to Eregha, the government should collaborate more with other sub-nationals to bring the insecurity threat under control, particularly in many agrarian communities.

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These should be in agrarian communities where there are often disputes over land issues among farmers and herders impeding food output,” Eregha said.

He noted that the Federal Government should ensure fiscal discipline in order not to exacerbate the rising inflation rate.

He added that the government could also reduce the purchase of any foreign commodities that had available alternatives locally.

“This will strengthen the local companies and reduce the value of imports into our economy,”Eregha said.

Also, former Executive Secretary, Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN), Dr Uju Ogubunka, advised the monetary authorities to adopt appropriate measures to further halt the steady decline of the Naira.

“More emphasis should be on how to incentivise local companies to exporting oil and non-oil products into the global market.

“This will lead to more foreign exchange inflows into the country and stabilise the Naira to other currencies, as well as reducing the volume of importation over time,” Ogubunka said.

He noted that the Federal Government could support more private companies to establish refined petrol chemical products locally.

“This will lead to the country achieving self-reliance in refined petroleum products and stop the immense hemorrhage on our foreign reserves.

“This is one of the factors fuelling the inflationary increases currently,” Ogubunka said.

Also speaking, an agric economist, Mr Nnamdi Ifenkwe, said the Federal Government should fully implement its all-year farming programme to address the food induced inflation.

Ifenkwe, Senior Manager at Nisi Agro Allied Services, said the government could continue to encourage more youths to venture into farming to achieve food sufficiency.

“We need to incentivise more youths to foray into modern-day farming so as to address the food shortage being experienced at the moment.

“Since the country’s population is generally increasing more young people is needed to be engaged in farming to bridge the gap,” Ifenkwe said.

He noted that the federal government should invest in more food reserves because the existing ones are currently inadequate for a growing population.

He added that the government should adopt measures to ameliorate post harvest losses because its one of the factors impeding food output.

NAN reports that the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said the headline inflation rate increased year-on-year (YoY) by 1.8 percent to 31.7 percent in February l from 29.9 percent in January.

This represents the highest level of inflation recorded in 28 years.

Looking at the movement, the February 2024 headline inflation rate showed an increase of 1.8 percent points when compared to the January 2024 headline inflation rate.

On a year-on-year (YoY) basis, the headline inflation was 9.79 percent points higher compared to the rate recorded in February 2023, which was 21.91 percent.