The Executive Chairman of the Centre for Anti-Corruption and Open Leadership, CACOL, Mr. Debo Adeniran has described the setting up of a Task Force on food security as a superfluous and extraneous step that have boldly revealed the insensibility of government to pains of the vast majority occasioned by the economic recession that have practically engulfed the country.
“The setting up of the task force clearly indicates that the government believes the mass of the people are making fables out of their true situation of existence. This is sad because we can see through government’s attempt to deny its failure in handling the economic situation by insinuating that the rise in costs of food is artificial. It is extreme tomfoolery and indeed reprehensible based on the insensitivity the insinuation portrays! There are several questions we need to ask to ascertain that this yet another futile step designed to distract attention of poor from their pains by government through false pretenses.”
“Does the government not understand that the rise in costs is not just about food items but about the cost of living generally in the country which has risen astronomically and that this is directly linked to the neo-liberal, anti-poor and inhuman economic policies of the administration?”
“Or does the government not realize that the astronomical rises they have rammed down the throats of Nigerians in virtually all they require to barely exist have multiplier effects on one and other?
“Does the government need education to know that the ‘ordinary’ tomato sellers will pay astronomic rates for transporting his/her items in vehicles running on fuel that now cost about 200% of what it used to cost? Do the thinkers for this government know that those doing business in the food sector all also have needs to access services from other sectors which the government has gladly handled over to private hands that have priced their services out of their reach in the name of privatization and deregulation?”
“The Federal Government recently set up a task force on food security with the objective to look at the causes of increase in the prices of food items across the country with a view to addressing them.”
“The government must abandon its neo-liberal fixation as the only way to address the economic issues of the country. The government must play the role it was elected and instituted for which is the social well-being and security of the people. Erstwhile leaders of our country against all odds invested heavily in food production and that was why agriculture was the mainstay of the productive economy that prevailed in the past. The present government appears not ready to act in trying to achieve such remarkable feats but prefers to slogan on returning agriculture to its days of glory.”
“There is no task force in the world that can ‘force’ down the prices of food items without first fulfilling the obligatory social conditions to do that!” Mr. Adeniran affirmed
Wale Salami
Media Coordinator, CACOL
08141121208
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