…Says the patience and tolerance level of Nigerians waning
The 10th Senate has called on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to urgently address the problem of food insecurity in the country.
According to the Senate, President Tinubu led Federal government should take measures to fight the current situation by outlining some measures to combat hunger and poverty in the land as patience and tolerance level of Nigerians are waning.
President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio revealed that the federal government has released about 60 trucks of fertilizer across the 36 states of the federation and the federal Capital Territory, Abuja, to be distributed to farmers in order to cushion the effects of food insecurity in the country.
While presiding over the plenary on Tuesday, Akpabio said the announcement of the trucks of fertilizer sent across the federation became necessary after he was briefed by the Committee Chairman on Agriculture and Rural Department, Saliu Mustapha.
A motion sponsored by Senator Karimi, Sunday Steve, representing Kogi West Senatorial District, and co-sponsored, by Senator Ndume Ali, representing Borno South senatorial district.
The motion titled: “Urgent Need to address Food Insecurity and Market Exploitation of Consumables in Nigeria.”
Sen. Karimi said that in the last few months, the price of goods and household consumables have been on an abysmal rise in the country, leading to a high rate of inflation, weakened buying power, and general worsening of living conditions of majority of Nigerians.
According to Karimi the latest data by Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) shows that food inflation in the country skyrocketed to 40.66 percent in a year-on-year basis, a significant increase from the 24.82 percent recorded in May 2023:
He lamented that current market price of food items such as beans, maize, rice paddy, yam, tomatoes, and onions which initially rose by about 40% after the removal of petroleum Subsidy has now increased to over 100% 10 300% without any attributable reason for the increase in prices
Karimi further stressed that aware that although insecurity in food-producing regions, bad roads, increase in the cost of transportation attributable to the removal of fuel subsidy and depreciation of the value of Naira are possible factors that have contributed to the increase in price of Food items, Household Commodities, and Consumables.
In his words: “concerned that the greater percentage of the increase in prices of food items and consumables in the Country is not only due to these factors but to the zest of the merchants, traders, and retailers to make supernormal profits whilst they excuse the hike in price on these factors (depreciation of the Naira against the Dollar, Increase in price of Petroleum Products due to Fuel price increase and insecurity in farming Regions), thereby heaping all the blame on the Federal Government
“Note that there is a general attitude of “Get Rich Quickly” or “Get Rich By All Means” leading many Nigerians to jettison “being their brother’s keeper” and exploiting one another to make abnormal profits: This attitude has been justified on the basis that many members of the Political Class, Technocrats, and Corporate Elites have helped themselves with Public Funds without any repercussions in Law, Nigerian Traders have thus resorted to Price increase to maximize profits.
Speaking further Senator Karimi said: “there are reports that Farming Communities in the Border Regions with other Countries, prefer to sell their food items abroad (to these neighboring countries), rather than domestically(to the hinterland), thereby increasing local food insecurity.”
He concluded that all efforts made by the current Federal Executive to arrest the consistent increase in food inflation have not yielded the desired results, “there is need to be more pragmatic about addressing food insecurity, curbing herder farmer crises, kidnapping for ransom, and Terrorism, and ensure the development of a viable National Commodity Board to regulate the price of grains and ensure the elimination of artificial contributions to food and commodity inflation in Nigeria.”
On his part, the immediate past President of the Senate, Senator Ahmad Lawan, APC, Yobe North told his colleagues that the people are really hungry in the country, warning that patience and tolerance are both elastic, but they are not eternally elastic, just as he took a swipe at the Federal Government, saying that the government has nothing in the food Reserve across the Country and that the Silos are empty.
Lawan said, “Let me say here that patience, and tolerance, are both elastic but they are not eternally elastic. Our students are facing real, real anger. I travelled the two states last week, in the north particularly, and I’ve seen first-hand how people, especially those who are not in the civil service, nor in any business, are suffering, fighting, and struggling to have food at least once a day.
“Under normal circumstances, Mr. President, in the rainy season, from maybe June up to September or October, when there will be harvests of new foodstuff, prices escalate prices of foodstuff. Now we don’t even have that the truth. Mr. President in today’s national daily, the Executive arm of government is saying it is considering reducing or removing taxes on imported foodstuff.
” Here’s the catch. This Senate must engage the executive immediately. What are the issues? Which taxes are they talking about? Because we should be seen to be doing the right thing. We have little or nothing in our food reserve across the country. And nobody. If they come and tell us, they will distribute foodstuff from our silos, the silos are empty. So it means we have to import food. And if we have to import, it means we need foreign exchange.
“We wouldn’t like the kind of thing that we see in our streets and it is time that we take every possible action to get out of the event of the arm of government to ensure that food floods our country, the right food.
“The government must be entirely responsible because we cannot, take people for granted for too long. We have come almost to the end of the patience. And I think the elasticity is now going to snap if we are not careful.”
Recall that basic food stuffs such as beans, maize, rice paddy, yam, tomatoes, and onions which initially rose by about 40% after the removal of petroleum Subsidy has now increased to over 100% 10 300%.