Just had a chat with a friend and the one takeaway that hit me hard is how much lack of reliable data yields to disastrous policy moves.

Rice has long been an obsession with the Nigerian govt, but in 2014, Min of Agric invested heavily in rice mills and gave all sorts of intervention funds on the premise that the was paddy to process. Guess what? No Paddy

If you look at border closure today and the supposed 'benefits'- on positively impacting Nigerian farming when production is shrinking due to insecurity in farming areas, funding, etc- you'll know that there will be no increase in yields. Again, no data, wrong decision.

I was honestly surprised by the chicken and beef shortages- till the link clicked. It's cheaper to ship chicken from wherever to Bene and truck to Nigeria than clear in our ports.

It's cheaper to set up an abattoir in Bene Republic and send the meat to Nigeria.

Again, if you close those channels, you're not magically going to get increased production here. Hell, the producers you want to engage have moved to Neighboring countries. Data would reveal all these truths about the futility of most of our trade & investment policy.