President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has directed the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security to release about 42,000 metric tonnes of grain including maize, millet and garri to cushion the effects of the prevailing hardship in the country.
The directive followed an emergency meeting of the Presidential Committee on Food Intervention convened by the Chief of Staff to the President at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
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The Rice Millers Association of Nigeria has also committed to immediately release over 60,000 metric tonnes of rice to the public.
Addressing State House reporters after the meeting, the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, said the meeting was put together to discuss how to put food on the table of most Nigerians.
He said the meeting came up with a number of measures to ensure food becomes more readily available.
Idris also disclosed that government was considering importation to solve the food problem “but only if it becomes necessary.”
He said, “This will be made available and we know that that is enough to take Nigerians the next one month to six weeks, perhaps up to two months. They’ve agreed that they will make that available to Nigerians.
“Now, the whole idea of this is to crash the cost of these food items. And these are measures that will happen immediately.
“Government is also looking at the possibility, if it becomes absolutely necessary as an interim measure on the short run, to also import some of these commodities immediately so that they can be made available to Nigerians immediately – within the next couple of weeks.
“Now, with all these emergency measures, there is of course a directive to the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security to invest massively, in conjunction with Nigerian farmers and other producers, so that we can have a better season coming up shortly.”
The minister also said government might take appropriate measures to ensure that the products being hoarded were made available to Nigerians.
On what the government can do to tame the menace of hoarding of food products, the minister said the country is in an emergency situation and “we’ll take emergency measures to make sure that this food is available to Nigerians.”
He also asked Nigerians to be more patriotic by being their brother’s keepers.
Daily Trust
