FGN not doing enough to eradicate hunger and insecurity: HURIWA alleges…

Oru Leonard 

Leading Civil Rights Advocacy group: Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), has expressed disappointment that government officials at all levels, engage more in unfruitful political propaganda and ‘sweet-talk’ but are doing next to nothing to end the widening spectres of hunger and insecurity.

HURIWA stressed that the policy of allowing Naira to float thereby depreciating the value of the National legal tender, is one of the greatest disservice to the fatherland as the destruction of the Naira vis-a-vis the US dollars, has led to closure of companies both multinational and locally owned and the exit of big manufacturers from the Western advanced economies out of Nigeria has created massive job loses and hunger because the prices of goods which they were making locally and can no longer manufacture have quadrupled in value following the fluctuating exchange rates that have destroyed the value of the Naira.

The Rights group said aside the evacuation of foreign owned manufacturing companies out of Nigeria due to the depreciating value of Nigeria’s legal tender, the heads of security forces and officials of government charged with implementation of strategies to safeguard food security and national security, have spectacularly failed as farmers are quitting the fields due to the heightened climate of insecurity and most Nigerian households can’t afford the extremely suffocating costs of living in Nigeria as a combined effect of collapsing national and food security. HURIWA stated that if government doesn’t act swiftly to provide quick reliefs, starving Nigerians may start dropping dead soon.

“Most of the cabinet level appointees of the current administration, and even highly placed officials within the presidency, still carry on as if the campaign period is not over whereas those charged with National Security and food security have not practically put measures on ground strong enough to check the growing rate of extreme hunger amongst the citizens and the extensive insecurity. HURIWA said growing cases of insecurity invariably breeds mass hunger in the fatherland.

“Nigerians are constantly inundated about some phantom investments by government to improve the productivity of farmers, but the real farmers who aren’t sufficiently supported either by way of credit facilities to expand their farming businesses, but due to the expanding frontiers of the activities of terrorists, kidnappers and bandits who impose toxic protection taxes on these rural farmers, have forced the farmers to abandon their farms and run for their dear lives”, HURIWA affirmed.

In a media statement, HURIWA, through the National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, has charged the President, Vice President, and the Secretary to the government of the Federation, to provide effective leadership to compel Ministers and heads of key government institutions in the strategic areas of national and food security, to deliver sustainable results to curb the disturbing cases of hunger and heightened state of insecurity.

HURIWA said the office of national security should provide leadership so synergy of operational strategies against terrorists, can be achieved collectively and jointly by the various arms of the security services just as HURIWA accused the Army and the Air Force of working at cross purposes which may be the fundamental reason for the recent air mishap in which over 100 civilians were massacred in an accidental bombing by the Army initially blamed on the Air Force but the Air Force almost immediately exonerated itself in a way to show that the Air Force has lost the sole responsibility for exercising air military power following the establishment of the aviation component in the Nigerian Army.

HURIWA which submitted that terrorists, bandits and kidnappers who are yet to be eliminated in their key areas of dominance in the North East and North West, have constituted major obstacles to farmers which has resulted in massive abandonment of farming activities, will inevitably continue to trigger absolute hunger in all of Nigeria because the North West and North East are strategic in the production of agricultural produce and essential foodstuffs that guarantee food security.

HURIWA lamented that the report of UNICEF that 25 million Nigerians are now at high risk of food insecurity today but the Rights group regretted that ministers of agriculture, water resources, Humanitarian affairs are all engaging in empty media propaganda whilst the rate of hunger increases in the Country just as the Rights group said government needs to declare a national emergency on food security to stave off massive deaths from absolute hunger in Nigeria.

The Rights group said the North Central region is also unsafe just as it stated that the North contributes more than 60% of foodstuffs to the nation meaning that any security problems in the North that is left unresolved for this long, will impede the activities of foods production in Nigeria.

HURIWA stated that from compilation made by renowned security experts, over 521 persons have been killed by terrorists, bandits and other criminal elements between July 1 and October 6, 2023, thus highlighting the worsening state of insecurity in the country.

In just six days in October, no fewer than 14 persons lost their lives in attacks by gunmen, according to tallies collated by security statisticians.

In September, 71 persons were killed; August saw 216 deaths, while the highest number of deaths as a result of insecurity at 219 was recorded in July.

For instance, on October 1, while Nigeria celebrated its Independence Day, a policeman was reportedly killed and four others sustained gunshot injuries after an attack in the Effium community of the Ohankwu Local Government Area of Ebonyi State.

Besides, HURIWA recalled that the level of insecurity worsened as gunmen began to invade farms and attack farmers in some states.

For instance, the Rights group observed that bandits have taken over the 14 Local Government Areas of Zamfara State and have posed a great threat to farmers in the state, mostly in the rural areas.

it was gathered that hundreds of farmers had been forced out of their communities, and as a result, more than 80 per cent of farmlands could no longer be cultivated this year.

It was learnt that only a few farmers, who chose to pay levies imposed by bandits, were currently allowed to farm in most of the rural areas. This situation, as gathered, had greatly affected food production and also resulted in an astronomical increase in the prices of foodstuffs.

HURIWA recalled that in a certain village as reported by the mass media,it was invaded by armed terrorists and bandits in Kaduna state last week, residents fled their farms because the invaders shot sporadically killing many residents following the failure of the farmers to pay up the protection levies imposed on them by these terrorists.

HURIWA is therefore appealing for action by the Federal Government that will be result- oriented and devoid of the frequent media propaganda by the spokespersons of the military institutions who are making unverifiable claims of eliminating terrorists in their numbers whereas farmers in a large part of the North can’t go to farm even as insecurity is prevalent in the South East and other parts of the country where large scale farming activities were hitherto going on.

 (HURIWA Media)