Financial analyst and Professor of Accounting at Lead City University, Ibadan, Godwin Oyedokun, has reacted to Nigeria’s spending of N3.3 trillion on food and beverage imports in the first six months of 2026.
The N3.3 trillion expenditure on food and beverage imports was contained in the National Bureau of Statistics’ Q2 2026 Foreign Trade Statistics released on Tuesday.
DAILY POST reports that NBS data showed that Nigeria’s food and beverage import bill stood at N1.39 trillion in the first quarter of 2026 before rising to N1.91 trillion in Q2, bringing total expenditure for the six-month period to N3.30 trillion.
Meanwhile, the H1 2026 figure represents a 3.1 per cent decline from the N3.40 trillion spent on food and beverage imports in H1 2025.
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In 2025, NBS data showed that Nigeria spent N1.67 trillion in Q1 and N1.73 trillion in Q2 on food and beverage imports, bringing the six-month total to N3.40 trillion.
Further analysis of the data showed that primary products imported mainly for household consumption accounted for N811.93 billion, rising from N280.81 billion in Q1 to N531.12 billion in Q2.
Primary products mainly used by industry accounted for N770.54 billion, with N353.24 billion recorded in Q1 and N417.31 billion in Q2.
Also, processed food and beverage imports accounted for N1.72 trillion during the period. The category rose from N758.52 billion in Q1 to N956.67 billion in Q2.
The latest figures come after Nigeria’s annual food and beverage import bill reached N7.65 trillion in 2025, according to earlier NBS data. This represented an increase from N6.58 trillion in 2024, while the country spent N3.83 trillion on food and beverage imports in 2023 and N2.86 trillion in 2022.
The development comes as the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) earlier warned that about 34.7 million Nigerians could face severe food insecurity during the next lean season.
In an exclusive interview with DAILY POST, Oyedokun said the NBS report showing that Nigeria spent N3.3 trillion on food imports had exposed serious structural weaknesses in the country’s agricultural economy.
He said his concern was not simply that Nigeria imports food, but that the country continues to rely heavily on foreign supplies for commodities it has the capacity to produce and process domestically.
According to him, the huge import bill reflects a combination of challenges confronting the agricultural sector, including insecurity, high input costs, limited access to agricultural finance, inadequate irrigation, poor storage facilities, transportation challenges and insufficient agro-processing infrastructure.
He warned that continued dependence on imported food would place additional pressure on Nigeria’s foreign exchange market while exposing consumers to international price fluctuations and exchange-rate shocks.
Oyedokun urged the Federal Government to move beyond emergency interventions and develop a long-term strategy focused on boosting agricultural productivity and reducing excessive dependence on food imports.
He said such a strategy should prioritise commercial farming, irrigation, mechanisation, affordable agricultural credit, storage facilities, rural infrastructure and agro-processing.
The professor said Nigeria should instead focus on creating an agricultural system capable of meeting a significantly larger share of domestic demand while building capacity to process and add value to locally produced commodities.
“The NBS report that Nigeria spent ₦3.3 trillion on food imports is a serious warning about the structural weaknesses in our agricultural economy. The issue is not that Nigeria imports food, but that we continue to depend heavily on imports for commodities that we have the capacity to produce and process domestically.
“The figure reflects challenges ranging from insecurity, high input costs and limited access to agricultural finance to inadequate irrigation, storage, transportation and agro-processing facilities. It also means continued pressure on foreign exchange and exposes Nigerian consumers to international price and exchange-rate shocks.
“Government must therefore move beyond emergency interventions and develop a long-term agricultural productivity and import-substitution strategy. This should prioritise commercial farming, irrigation, mechanisation, affordable credit, storage, rural infrastructure and agro-processing.
“Nigeria should not aim to eliminate food imports completely; rather, imports should complement domestic production instead of substituting for it. The N3.3 trillion import bill should be viewed not merely as a trade statistic, but as a measure of the economic opportunities Nigeria is losing by failing to fully unlock its agricultural potential,” he told DAILY POST on Thursday.
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