Nigerians may run out of patience if FG fails to address food crisis – Senate warns

BY TUNDE OPALANA

The Senate on Tuesday raised the alarm that the Federal Government has to urgently address food insecurity in the country by adopting multi-dimensional approach to stem the rising cost of food items.

This is as some senators warned that crisis is imminent should the government allows the citizens to run out of patience as a result of the devastating hunger in the country.

To address food insecurity, the Senate called for an urgent arrest of herders / farmers clashes, cattle rustling and other forms of insecurity militating against food sufficiency in Nigeria .

These came to the fore at plenary while debating on a motion sponsored by senators Sunday Karimi (Kogi West) on the urgent need to address food insecurity and market exploitation of consumables in Nigeria.

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The motion which was co-sponsored by Senator Ali Ndume (Borno South) indicated that in the last few months, the prices of food items 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 vast majority of Nigerians.

Senator Karimi further said that the latest data by Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics shows that food inflation in the country skyrocketed to 40.66 percent on a year-on-year basis, a significant increase from the 24.82 percent recorded in May 2023.

He disclosed that “the current market prices of food items such as beans, maize, rice, yam, tomatoes and onions which initially rose by about 40 percent after removal of petroleum subsidy has now increased to over 100 percent to 300 percent without any attributable reason for the increase in prices.

“Aware that although insecurity in food – producing regions, bad roads , increase in the cost of transportation attributablevto 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, the percentage of increase in cost of transportation and some under factors listed above , is significantly less that the percentage increase in the current prices of goods all over the country.

“Concerned that the greater percentage of the increase in price of food items and consumables in the country is not only due to these factors but to the zest of the merchant, 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 healing all the blames on the Federal Government “.

Senator Karimi therefore 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,

Contributing to the motion, Senator Ahmed Lawan, former Senate President, commended the movers of the motion, adding that “patience and tolerance are elastic, but they are not eternally elastic. Our citizens are facing real hunger. I travelled to two states in the North particularly, last week and have seen first hand how people, especially those who are neither in the civil service not in any business; common every day are suffering, struggling to have food once a day.

“Under normal circumstances, in the raining season from June to September or October when there will be harvest of new food stuffs, prices of food stuffs escalate. Now, we don’t even have, that is the truth.

“In today’s national dailies, the legislative arm of government is saying it is considering reducing or removing taxes on imported food stuff.

“Mr. President, here is the catch: This Senate must engage the executive immediately. What are the issues, what taxes are they talking about? We should be seen to be doing the right thing. We have little or nothing in our food reserves across the country. Nobody should tell us that they have distributed so, so from our silos; the silos are empty.

“It means we have to import food and it means we need foreign exchange, which is scarce. We have to engage with the administration.

“We, the members of the National Assembly, are the most vulnerable in the leadership arrangement of the country. Everybody looks up to the senator or House of Representatives member. In fact, people see senators like the messiahs. Any problem the get, they say go to your senator.

“If we don’t take immediate action and our citizens under this situation of increased fuel, increased electricity price, increased everything and we are yet to take the right measures to provide cushion for our citizens, we won’t like the kind of things we will see in our streets.

“It is time we take every possible action together with the executives arm of government to ensure that the right food flood our country. Government must be entirely responsible for importation because we cannot take people for granted for too long. We have come almost to the end of their patience and I think the elasticity is going to sag if we are not careful”.

Senator Aliu Wadada (Nasarawa West) also sounded warning of the possible ripple effect of food crisis if not urgently addressed.

Wadada said Nigerians are enduring people but the people cannot go on enduring the hunger in the land.

He commended the government resolve to exempt food items importation from all forms of taxes and duties.

He also urged politicians to add value to efforts being put in place by the Federal Government in eliminating setbacks to security and food production.

Senate President, Godswill Akpabio remarked that even from the submission of Senator Wadada, it was clear that Nigerians cannot suffer from hunger while the government has the capacity to ameliorate their situation.

He assured that as part of government efforts, 60,000 trucks of fertilizers are being transported to each states of the federation while each senators will get two trucks of fertilizers and one truck each allocated to each member of the House of Representatives for onward distribution to farmers in their constituents.