Would you reintroduce any form of price control on staple foods?

What will you do to create opportunities that encourage young Nigerians to stay and those in the diaspora to return? Answer: To curb brain drain, I will prioritize macroeconomic stabilization, business-friendly regulatory reforms, tax incentives for returnee-led businesses, and dedicated diaspora investment channels, and comprehensive security reforms to make living and investing in Nigeria safe and rewarding. Q5: Food is becoming unaffordable for many families. What will you do to bring down the prices of basic foods such as rice, beans and garri? Answer: My plan targets immediate yield expansion for local food staples by eliminating import duties on farm inputs, replenishing national strategic grain reserves to buffer prices during shortages, and lowering transport costs by subsidizing local fuel refining inputs.

Answer: I am proposing a Production Subsidy Model that lowers crude supply prices or offers fiscal relief on inputs to local refiners. This reduces refining costs at home and lowers retail pump prices without forcing refiners into losses. Q40: If government subsidises locally refined petrol or crude supplied to refineries, how much will it cost, where will the money come from, and what happens if oil prices rise or government revenue falls? Answer: The subsidy will be explicitly capped in the national budget and funded directly from domestic crude sales. Global price shocks will be managed using structured fiscal stabilization buffers and oil revenue hedging tools.

We would have been guided by my robust reform agenda as encapsulated in 'My Covenant With Nigerians', my policy document that sought to, among others, protect our fragile economy against much deeper crisis by preventing business collapse; our document had spelt out policies that were consistent and coherent. We would have sequenced my reforms to achieve fiscal and monetary congruence. Unleashing reforms to determine an appropriate exchange rate, cost-reflective electricity tariff, and PMS price at one and the same time is certainly an overkill. Add CBN’s bullish money tightening spree. As importers of PMS and other petroleum products, removing subsidy on these products without a stable exchange rate would be counterproductive. We would have been more strategic in our response to reform fallout. We would not over-estimate the efficacy of the reform measures or underestimate the potential costs of reforms. I would recognise that reforms could sometimes fail. I would not underestimate the numerous delivery challenges, including the weaknesses of our institutions, and would work assiduously to correct the same. I would, as a responsible leader, pause, reflect, and where necessary, review implementation.

Atiku’s argument is precisely the opposite. Reduce the cost of energy so that salaries buy more. Reduce transport costs so that less of a worker’s wage disappears merely getting to work. Reduce the cost of moving food so families spend less in the market. Reduce the cost of living so students spend less on upkeep and parents have more money left after food, rent and transportation. You cannot make life painfully expensive, push students towards debt to survive the consequences, and then frighten those same students that cheaper fuel will take their loans away. Nor can you tell workers that a policy designed to restore value to their wages will somehow take those wages from them. That is not economic reform. It is scarecrow propaganda built on witchcraft economics. And while you celebrate statistics, Nigerians still deserve answers about the enormous sums surrounding your so-called reforms. Your government says subsidy removal mobilised about ₦15.8 trillion between June 2023 and December 2025. Nigerians surrendered cheap fuel. They paid more for transportation. They paid more for food. They watched the value of their wages collapse. So what measurable improvement reached the average Nigerian household in exchange for that sacrifice?

● Support farmers through targeted investment in inputs, mechanization, extension services, and market access - matching the right policy tools to the needs of different categories of farmers ● Put into use the abandoned water dams across federal, state, and local levels to enable year-round farming for smallholder farmers ● Develop the entire agricultural value chain to enhance productivity, reduce post-harvest losses, and invest in aggregation centres, warehouses, and cold chain systems 3. Stabilize food prices and protect Nigerians from food inflation. We will take targeted and coordinated action to reduce food price volatility, protect households from sudden spikes, and ensure stable and affordable food supply across the country. ● Build and maintain a transparent strategic grain reserves release system to stabilize supply and release food into the market during shortages ● Strengthen market monitoring systems to track food prices in real time and enable early government response ● Coordinate with states and the private sector to ensure efficient distribution of food during supply shocks

● Reduce the incentives for kidnapping by making the system riskier, less profitable, and easier to dismantle ● Disrupt financial flows that enable kidnapping, including ransom payments, laundering channels, and support networks ● Deploy intelligence and financial tracking systems to identify, monitor, and shut down kidnapping operations ● Introduce strict legal and financial consequences for individuals and entities that facilitate or profit from ransom systems 11.Make farming safe again. Recognizing that insecurity on farms directly drives food shortages and rising prices, we will treat farmer security as a core pillar of food policy Details: ● Secure farming communities and agricultural corridors through targeted security deployments ● Establish protected farming zones in high-risk areas to enable safe cultivation and harvest ● Integrate security planning into agricultural policy, linking farm protection to food supply stability ● Support early warning and rapid response systems for rural communities facing threats ● Reduce food inflation by ensuring farmers can produce, harvest, and transport goods without disruption