By Kingston Magare
President Bola Tinubu has been urged to act fast and squelch the hunger caused by skyrocketing prices of food across the country.
The clarion call by the Senate, followed a motion titled “Urgent Need to Address Food Insecurity and Market Exploitation of Consumables In Nigeria,” tabled moved by Senator Sunday Karimi (APC, Kogi West) and supported by Senator Ali Ndume (APC, Borno South) in Tuesday’s plenary session of the upper legislative branch.
During discussions the Senators noted that prices of consumables and goods have risen astronomically, coupled with rising inflation have left Nigerians living from hand to mouth.
“The 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% to 300% without any attributable reason for the increase in prices,” Senator Karimi submitted.
“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; the percentage of increase in cost of transportation and some under factors listed above, is significantly less than the percentage increase in the current prices of goods all ever the country.”
He blamed the trend mainly on profiteering traders: “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 political Class Technocrats, and Corporate Elites and Corporate Elites have helped themselves with Public Funds without any repercussions in law, Nigerian traders have thus resorted to Price Gouging to maximize profits.”
“All efforts made by the current Federal Executive to arrest the consistent increase in food inflation have not yielded the desired results, there is a 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.”
Ndume in his statement said the forecast for Nigeria food security looked bleak: “In their many publications, they say Nigeria is likely to experience the highest session of food insecurity globally.
“Currently, there are four countries including Sudan and some others that are facing very serious insecurity. Nigeria is added to this list this year by the International Rescue Committee as one of the spots for food insecurity action against hunger. World Food Program also indicated that over 32 million people are expected to face a critical hunger crisis and emerging levels between June and August.
“I don’t know about some other colleagues, but there in the North, we have started seeing it visibly. This is the first time we are experiencing this level of hunger. It’s the first time Nigeria is being listed as one of the countries with food insecurity.”
