By Joshua Ilevbare
In recent times, prices of essential commodities have unprecedentedly surged to 35.41% from 33.20% in March, 2024. Also, the number of food-insecure Nigerians has increased significantly from 66.2 million in 2023 to 100 million in 2024. Investigations have revealed that about 18.6 million Nigerians are currently facing acute hunger, and about 43.7 million are trapped in acute poverty and penury.
However, President Bola Tinubu is worried and has sleepless nights on charting possible ways out of this challenge. Responsively, the Federal Government has put in place proactive efforts at mitigating hunger and poverty caused by the perpetual rise in the prices of goods and services.
President Tinubu administration has taken some proactive steps to eliminate the economic virus that is about strangulating Nigerians especially the poor. Some of these measures include the creation of National Social Investment Programmes (NSIP) aimed at reducing poverty and hunger, the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) scheme, Agricultural Transformation Agenda to boost agricultural production and improve food security. Another responsive attempt of the FG is the establishment of a scheme providing financial support to vulnerable households and citizens with Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSME).
The FG has empowered state governments through the Conditional Grant Scheme, a programme that is aimed at providing grants to all the 36 states and FCT which was geared towards ameliorating the hardship.
Moreover, it has become imperative for the government to subsidize grains and legumes for its citizens for affordability by the most vulnerable people. The previously released grain by the federal government to the politicians, who delight in seeing the poor suffer and cry, only ended up in hands of their friends and relatives. It should be pointed out that the fifty thousand naira (N50000), and seventy thousand naira (N70,000) grant allegedly given through some politicians to the citizens could solve 2% of the challenges the vulnerable are subjected to. We are asking the Government to open every channel for a specific period to allow for the maturity of her investment in Agriculture.
The Federal government intervention in dry and wet farming through the National Agricultural Growth Scheme and Agro Pocket Project is a well thought out model that is vastly changing the narrative in the Agricultural sector, Investigations have shown that captured farmers for the dry season farming got at least one 50kg bag of urea, two 50kg bags of NPK, 2 liters of herbicide and 1 liter of insecticide, outcomes efficiently deployed.
We strongly recommend that the current campaign by the President of Dangote Group…, on the alleged powerful oil Cartel in the petroleum sector, should be closely looked into to provide a better living standard for the poor and vulnerable which President Tinubu stands for.
In conclusion, we appeal to Nigerians to be patient with the APC-led administration for the Renewed Hope Agenda of Mr. President Tinubu in mind. The Planned Nationwide protest should be suspended to avoid unintended outcomes that would further worsen the suffering and hardship currently faced by Nigerians.
