Financial analyst and Professor of Accounting at Lead City University, Ibadan, Godwin Oyedokun, has reacted to Nigeria’s spending of N3.3 trillion on food and beverage imports in the first six months of 2026.
The N3.3 trillion expenditure on food and beverage imports was contained in the National Bureau of Statistics’ Q2 2026 Foreign Trade Statistics released on Tuesday.
DAILY POST reports that NBS data showed that Nigeria’s food and beverage import bill stood at N1.39 trillion in the first quarter of 2026 before rising to N1.91 trillion in Q2, bringing total expenditure for the six-month period to N3.30 trillion.
Meanwhile, the H1 2026 figure represents a 3.1 per cent decline from the N3.40 trillion spent on food and beverage imports in H1 2025.
In 2025, NBS data showed that Nigeria spent N1.67 trillion in Q1 and N1.73 trillion in Q2 on food and beverage imports, bringing the six-month total to N3.40 trillion.
Further analysis of the data showed that primary products imported mainly for household consumption accounted for N811.93 billion, rising from N280.81 billion in Q1 to N531.12 billion in Q2.
Primary products mainly used by industry accounted for N770.54 billion, with N353.24 billion recorded in Q1 and N417.31 billion in Q2.
Also, processed food and beverage imports accounted for N1.72 trillion during the period. The category rose from N758.52 billion in Q1 to N956.67 billion in Q2.
The latest figures come after Nigeria’s annual food and beverage import bill reached N7.65 trillion in 2025, according to earlier NBS data. This represented an increase from N6.58 trillion in 2024, while the country spent N3.83 trillion on food and beverage imports in 2023 and N2.86 trillion in 2022.
The development comes as the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) earlier warned that about 34.7 million Nigerians could face severe food insecurity during the next lean season.
Credit: dailypost.ng
