Address Food Insecurity Now, PDP Tells APC, Buhari

Chuks Okocha in Abuja

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) yesterday called on President Muhammadu Buhari and the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led federal government to take urgent steps to address the worsening food insecurity and the attendant hunger and starvation across the nation.

The PDP lamented that under Buhari, over 82.9 million Nigerians can no longer afford their daily meals due to the failure of the administration to take practical steps to grow and protect the food sector, thereby leading to severe food scarcity with prices soaring beyond the reach of Nigerians.

In a statement by the National Publicity Secretary of PDP, Mr. Kola Ologbondiyan, the party said that due to the misrule of the APC government, the country now ranks as 98 out of 107 in Global Hunger Index, with an agonising food shortage, collapsed purchasing power; alarming 33.3 per cent unemployment and 22.95 per cent food inflation rates as well as increased morbidity and mortality rates.

“Today, under the APC, a bag of rice which sold for N8,000 under the PDP now sells for N30,000, a measure of garri and beans which sold for N150 and N250 now sell for N500 and N800 respectively; a measure of maize and guinea corn which sold for about N150 now sells for N400 while a kilo of meat which sold for about N800 now sells for about N2,300.

“Our party notes that the current food crisis is occasioned by the failure of the APC administration to recalibrate our agricultural sector as well as to take decisive steps to address the violence, terrorism and banditry in food production areas,” the main opposition party said

According to the PDP, “Nigerians recall how the APC administration had remain insensitive to calls by our party and well-meaning Nigerians asking it to address the escalated violent attacks and killing of farmers as well as livestock producers, by bandits, terrorists and criminal herders resulting in desertion of farms in various parts of our country.