Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man and chairman of the Dangote Group, has warned that the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine may lead to food crisis in Nigeria in two or three months.
Dangote, therefore, advised the government to immediately stop Nigerians currently exporting maize from doing so.
The industrialist who spoke on Tuesday night at the fourth Annual Nigerian Food Processors and Nutrition Leadership Forum where critical and concerned players in the food processing, health and financing sectors gathered to appraise the food fortification situation in the country, said the government and food processors and other concerned parties need to urgently sit at a round table to seek ways towards averting the impending crisis.
The forum, which was chaired by Dangote, also had in attendance other business leaders in the food processing sector including the representative of the Vegetable and Edible Oil Producers Association of Nigeria (VEOPAN), Okey Ikoro, among others.
Noting that the effects of the crisis are already being felt in the food processing chain, Dangote said prices of fertiliser, wheat, maize, among other products, have already gone up.
“There will be a shortage of wheat, maize and a lot of products because as we speak, Russia and Ukraine do almost 30 per cent of the world’s urea and 26 per cent of the world’s potash; and even phosphate also, they are one of the largest producers in the world,” he said.
“There would be a scarcity of food generally, we would not be able to access fertilizers going forward, we would not see the effects now, but in the next two, three months. Even the US will not be able to do the same number of tonnage they did last year because of this.
“Right now, you start seeing people exporting maize to earn foreign exchange, which I think we need to stop, so that we don’t create shortage; and we need to make sure we grow more so we don’t have a shortage. It is about food security, and it is very, very serious.”