Nigeria’s information minister said this is the first step as the government takes steps to address food shortages in the country.

By Lanre Lasisi

FILE: Bags of grains are offloaded from a truck at the market in Jibia on February 18, 2024. (Photo by Kola Sulaimon / AFP)

The Federal Government has distributed 20 trucks of rice each to the 36 states of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja.

The Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, disclosed this after Monday’s Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting.

The minister said this is the first step as the government takes steps to address the issue of food shortage in the country.

He appealed to the governors to ensure the effective distribution of the grains to the most vulnerable in the society.

Meanwhile, Nigeria’s inflation figure has reached a new high, hitting 34.19% for June 2024, according to the latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

As expected, there was a rise in food inflation for June 2024 in comparison with the figure recorded in May 2024.

“On a month-on-month basis, the Food inflation rate in June 2024 was 2.55% which shows a 0.26% increase compared to the rate recorded in May 2024 (2.28%),” the NBS report read.

According to the NBS, this hike was triggered by a rise in the average prices of food items such as groundnut oil, palm oil, etc (oil & fats class), water yam, cocoyam, cassava, etc (potatoes, yam & other tubers class), tobacco, catfish fresh, croaker, mudfish fresh, snail, etc, (fish class).

Published Date: July 15, 2024