The Trade Union Congress (TUC), one of the organized labour unions in Nigeria, has advised the Federal Government to sustain its food importation policy until insecurity is adequately addressed and farmers are able to return to their farms, noting that suspension of food items importation could trigger another surge in prices of staple foods.
The TUC President-General, Festus Osifo, who made the call on Tuesday in Abuja while speaking on the economic challenges confronting workers and Nigerians, expressed the union’s concern that although some macroeconomic indicators had stabilised, the positive indices had yet to translate into any relief for workers, traders and households, who are struggling with high living costs.
The labour leader recalled that the union had submitted a 15-point demand to the Federal Government in early 2024, including measures to tackle food insecurity, insecurity and the erosion of workers’ purchasing power.
Osifo maintained that TUC supported food imports at the time because insecurity had prevented many farmers from accessing their farms, thereby constraining domestic supply.
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The TUC President clarified: “We don’t want a bag of rice to go back again to N100,000. We don’t want a bag of rice to go back again to N120,000. Even where it is today, we still believe it’s still relatively high.
“We still believe it can still come down much more than that. The same thing with the price of tomato, the same thing with the price of yam, because we must feed ourselves before we are able to do anything else.
“Food importations could be stopped only and only if farmers could go back to farms. Only if and only when the supply end has been solved,” he said. “Government must sustain this policy and solve the state of insecurity so that our farmers can go back to farms”, he added.
Osifo also called on the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to adopt more monetary measures to strengthen the naira, claiming that the currency remains undervalued despite improving from about N1,700-N1,800/$1 in 2024 to around N1,380-N1,400/$1 now.
He maintained: “Today, it has stabilised around 1,380 naira to a dollar. But the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria still feels that this is still relatively high. We still believe that our naira is still undervalued. If that is done, it is going to reflect in the inflation figures; it is going to reflect in the cost of goods in the market.”
The TUC chief’s comments came amid renewed concerns over the cost of living, particularly based on rising food inflation rate.
According to the latest Consumer Price Index report released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) Nigeria’s food inflation rate rose to 17.52% in June 2026, from 16.96% recorded in the preceding month.
The statistics agency attributed the surge in prices primarily to staple items such as yams, Irish potatoes, and other tubers, as well as beef, fresh pepper, tomatoes, and crayfish.
