Chairman of BUA Group, Abdul-Samad Rabiu, said Nigeria’s major agribusiness players are collaborating with President Bola Tinubu to fight food inflation by dismantling rice-hoarding cartels and freezing cement prices on public infrastructure projects.
Speaking to State House Correspondents after a meeting with the President at the Aso Rock Villa on Thursday, Rabiu revealed that recent imports of grain under a six-month duty waiver granted by the Federal Government would keep rice prices stable through December.
His words: “What that intervention tariff waiver on brown rice, maize, wheat and sorghum] did at the time was to create an issue for these hoarders.
“Since the moment we imported, we were selling, and those hoarders had a lot of paddy that they could not sell. As a result, the price has come down, and it remains low.”
He added, “A lot of those hoarders are actually crying now and losing money. I appreciate that, yes, we need to protect our farmers, but at the same time, we also have 250 million Nigerians who are paying a lot more than they should be paying because of the actions of a few companies or individuals.”
Rabiu explained that the Rice Millers Association, of which BUA is a member, has agreed to curb speculative stockpiling within its ranks. “We want to ensure that we are not buying and hoarding paddy. They know that if they try to hoard rice and try to take it up, BUA is there and will crash the price.”
According to him, the import buffer will help prevent the kind of price manipulation that saw farm-gate prices double from ₦400,000 to ₦800,000 per tonne and retail rice hit ₦110,000 per bag earlier in the year.
He said rice now sells for about ₦60,000 per 50-kg bag.
He credited Tinubu’s “foresight” in approving the grain import waiver, noting that it allowed BUA to bring in bulk volumes of rice, flour, and maize, which in turn crashed market prices. “Flour fell to ₦55,000 from ₦80,000, and maize to ₦30,000 from ₦60,000,” he said.
Shifting to the construction sector, Rabiu revealed a joint agreement with Dangote Cement to freeze cement prices for all projects under the Federal Government’s Renewed Hope infrastructure plan, especially those using concrete roads.
“Cement prices are not really high when you look at the naira-dollar equation.
“But Alhaji Aliko Dangote approached me, and we agreed to freeze the price of cement for any contractor working on Renewed Hope projects,” he explained.
He continued, “There will be no increase for the foreseeable future. Engineer David Umahi’s move to concrete roads is smart, more durable, and ultimately cheaper than bitumen, and we’re reorganising the Cement Manufacturers Association to deliver.”
Rabiu noted that the cement sector, which serves a national demand of over 30 million tonnes annually, will also contribute ₦15–₦20 billion yearly to revive the Cement Technology Institute of Nigeria and fund training for construction artisans.
“So what it means is that any company or anybody that is involved or that is doing a project that is under the Renewed Hope, the price of cement will be frozen,” Rabiu said. “We are doing that to support Mr. President’s Renewed Hope initiative.”
He concluded that President Tinubu “was quite satisfied and urged us to do more,” presenting both the food and construction initiatives as concrete private-sector support for the government’s economic recovery agenda.
