FG’s Waiver Policy Pushes Nigeria’s Food Import Bill To N7.65trn

By Tony Enokela

Nigeria’s food and beverage imports reached N7.65 trillion in 2025, a four-year peak, largely fuelled by the federal government’s 2024 import waiver policy.

Data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) shows that the country spent N7.65 trillion importing food and beverages from other nations in 2025.

The NBS figures reveal a 63 per cent jump from N2.86 trillion in 2022.

The policy eased inflation pressures but spiked the import bill to N6.58 trillion in 2024, hurting local farmers and straining foreign exchange reserves.

The surge was driven by the 2024 import waiver policy the Nigerian government announced to help address one of the country’s highest food inflation rates on record – over 40 per cent.

While the policy helped combat food inflation, it caused losses for farmers and increased food import bill to N6.58 trillion in 2024.

In 2023, Nigeria spent N3.83 trillion on food imports, with the figure peaking in 2025 to mark the highest level within the period.

Of the imported food commodities in 2025, about N1.34 trillion was used for importing food for household consumption and roughly N2.09 trillion was spent importing food for industrial purposes.

The 2025 household consumption bill is more than double the amount expended for the same purpose in 2022 – N529.4 billion.

According to experts, no nation can survive entirely on importation.

Recent data from the United Nations Comtrade show that Nigeria spent roughly N51 billion on rice import in 2024, just when the import waiver policy was kicking off.

Today, many rice mills have shut down due to inability to compete with rising costs of production and low market.

The NBS data also indicated that Nigeria expended over N4 trillion importing processed food in 2025, more than 100 percent surge when compared to only about N1.4 trillion spent for the same reason in 2022.