Taiwo Hassan 
Days after the #Endbadgovernance protests ended across the country, emerging reports indicate that the food and beverages sector of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) currently has a high inventory of unsold goods due to halt in the distribution, supply and delivery to key distributors and others in the value chain.
New Telegraph gathered from key sources working in some blue chip firms in the country that the #endbadgovernance protests caused a stockpile of unsold finished goods in different warehouses.
The firms nursed fears that their trucks would be attacked, goods looted and vandalised by mobs and protesters amid insecurity all over the country.
Our correspondent reports that the inability of the affected companies to distribute their goods during the 10-day protests disrupted supply to customers, who had paid for short and long term period, thus breaching agreements running into billions of naira.
Findings by New Telegraph across notable blue chip firms, including Flour Mills Plc, Nigerian Bottling Company (NBC) Limited, Unilever Nigeria, Dangote Sugar, PZ Nigeria, May & Baker Plc, WAMCO, among others showed massive disruptions of trucks meant for the hinterlands and other places like the North, East and South South.
Some sources, who spoke to New Telegraph under the condition of anonymity, explained that the protests disrupted their planning and revenue projections for the remainder part of the year, 2024, because many of their key suppliers, distributors and others were waiting for new supplies to stock their shops, but could not because of the protests.
One of them said that the ongoing fuel scarcity was also a major factor as getting diesel, otherwise known as AGO (Automotive Gas Oil), supply at filling stations has been difficult.
However, while reacting to the development, a renowned supply chain expert and board member of African Centre for Supply Chain (ACSC), Dr. Madu Obiora explained that the food & beverage firms could not be blamed in this situation.
Obiora, a former board member of MAN, said: “The price which we are crying that has gone up will go up further, because one of the biggest barriers to logistics is insecurity.
If some pictures in the social media seen some people’s houses are being removed in that area, and so on and so forth, only a mad man will put his logis – tics truck on the road this time.
“In short, if you want to get GIP (Goods In Transit) insurance for a truck that is going towards the northern direction you will pay through your noise. That is if anybody accepted to take that risk in the first place.
“So obviously it means that these companies have produced in accordance to their planning and projections. And these goods are supposed to go to some different destinations across the country, but they are unable to.
He continued: “So as it dries up in that area, prices continue to go up, meanwhile their warehouses have stocks abundantly, so it’s a big disruption in supply chain.”
On the economic implications of the contractual agreements defaults, the logistics guru said: “The fact is that it is obvious because there was an agreement. In this case, goods were already paid for but they cannot move.
And the people paid for it they cannot blame these companies because the products have been produced but they cannot move their vehicles through those areas to where you the supplier is based.
“It is when supply chain is disrupted everything stopped to move. “The multiplier effect of this to the entire economy in the country is cynical. I wish it is possible to quantify the losses out of this type of situation in naira and kobo, people will be shocked at how much has been lost to the protest.
“So, it seems people don’t understand the peaceful environment because there should be no protest if everything was peaceful, there should not have been peaceful protests at all.
I am talking about a situation which is normal, when things are normal. “But logistics don’t thrives in abnormal situation like in COVID-19. The reason being that nobody was moving.
The only thing that was feared at that point in time was contracting COVID.” According to him, “but here is a situation where a group of people can just come out, rob a vehicle, collect all the food items on it that the driver vehicle is carrying.
“So how do you explain that. In fact the things that are working against logistics in Nigeria, is too many. Survival is very very difficult. Anyone who is into manufacturing will tell you.”
