By; Mohammed Kawu, Bauchi
Nigeria’s former ambassador to the Republic of Japan, Ambassador Adamu Aliyu has described as in-humane the attitude of some Nigerian businessmen who stocked foodstuff in larger ware houses across the country for profitability.
“The opinions of some people are that there is alot of food in the country, but have been kept in big ware houses waiting for profitability. This is in-humane, and those are in the habit of selling grains and other footstuff must think seriously to allow the commodities to go into the market”, the envoy said.
Ambassador Adamu Aliyu who was fielding press questions at his residence in Bauchi Tuesday, however noted with dismay that stocking or hoarding essential commodities exhibitedly indicate paining the customers or throwing them into famine.
Alh. Adamu Aliyu who holds the traditional title of ‘Walin Katagum’ in the state, further stated “In reality, there are real and serious problems that hinges around poverty and food scarcity in the country.
He said, “The Federal Government and all other well-meaning citizens must feel concern in terms of the happenings in the country. The reality of the matter is that we are not really sure most of the state governments did have food reserves”.
The 81-year old technocrat noted that the Federal Government has the big task of looking for food to supply hungry citizens, and warned those keeping the goods in stores to pain their customers against the consequences of their actions.
“The reality of the matter is that there is serious insecurity in the country, one would have to admit that the insecurity did not start with the coming of this government led by President Bola Tinubu”.
Walin Katagum recalled, “For the eight consecutive years of General Muhammadu Buhari, he met insecurity, and unfortunately the efforts put by his government is not good enough and didn’t solve insecurity problems, so the current government inherited a very bad situation”.
“The good thing is that the party running the government today, is the same party that run the government of General Muhammadu Buhari for eight years, so the party and the current government must put heads together to seek opinions from highly knowledgeable people on how to avert a very big disaster of famine to the teeming population of the country”.
Alh. Adamu Aliyu expressed the believe that it is durable for the government to offer reasonable prices to those who are keeping large stocks of grains and other items to feed the population.
He said that with the incoming rainy season coming closer, the need for the federal government to assist Nigerian farmers cannot be over-emphasized, stressing that assisting the farmers is necessary for them to grow food and cash crops to take care of their lives.
“Government has the ways and means to appeal to those who already have large stocks of grains to put them into the markets through offering reasonable prices and reasonable profits, but to sell the grains at market forces as it is today will be unfair to the population”.
Walin Katagum concluded, “So government must be seen to be fair, and.convince those who have stocks of large quantity of food to release them to the markets. So if the prices can fall, the ordinary man can drive the benefit for comfort, so government must emply every means of persuasions between it and those who are stocking large quantity of food”.
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