This is not only happening in nigeria, it's a current theme all over the world right now that the world food pro gramme has termed it, “the silent tsunami.”
According to Sen. Jibril Gada, the National Vice-Chairman of All Farmers Association (AFAN) who was quoted in the Vanguard, “the country is sitting on a time bomb due to the rising prices of food items.”
and what are the attributed causes: possibly climate change, rising price of oil, or possibly (maybe a correlation), the developed world's emphasis on bio-fuels from materials that constitute the source of food for us.
There are questions that have to be asked about the Federal Government's answer to this danger: “the proposed release of the country's strategic food reserves in wheat, how would it be implemented? For whom? Would an answer like this only be enough? What would happen if the price of oil continues to rise? If the climate change continues, can the strategic reserves be replaced and replenished? How? When? Are prices still going to rise further?
These are not questions for me to answer, am not a policy maker, but questions worth pondering over. Nigerians have suffered enough and we're getting poorer. If we keep relying on foreign exchange for everything, even little stuff like sugar, when will we hope to give relief to at least the relative middle class?
STOP PRESS:
ReplyDeletethe awfully harrowing rise in the price of a sachet of pure water has fallen back to five naira, its former price. gravity works sometimes.