BY MYKE UZENDU, ABUJA
The presidential candidate of Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi has described as disheartening, the death of some Nigerians while scrambing to get cheap rice being auctioned by the Nigerians Customs Service in Lagos.
Obi, in series of tweets on Monday expressed sadness over how search for cheap rice claimed the lives of some Nigerians in Lagos.
According to the report, a massive crowd of hungry Nigerians besieged the Zonal Office of the Nigerian Customs Service in Yaba, Lagos, to purchase the discounted 25kg bags of rice being offered by the Customs Service. In the course, a heavy stampede ensued and some lives were lost.
Reacting to the development, the former governor of Anambra State said, “It is heartbreaking to think that despite all the wealth of our nation, Nigerians are losing their lives in their desperate quest to buy cheaper food in the face of the growing hunger and starvation in the country.
“This sad occurrence reflects the level of hardship, hunger, and starvation prevalent in the country, with millions of people not knowing where their next meal will come from. It is very disheartening that our national economy has been driven into perhaps the worst state in all of our national history,” Obi stated.
According to him, the population of those who are today classified as multi-dimensionally poor had climbed astronomically to over 80% of the national population, saying the nation had a hunger index considered very serious, with Nigeria ranking 109th out of 125 countries measured.
“Our food inflation rate is at an all-time high, at over 35 percent. Similarly, unemployment is galloping, and for a predominantly youthful population, this scenario is dire and frighteningly dangerous.
“For the first time in our peacetime history, stark undisguised hunger has become a national epidemic with hundreds of thousands of our people driven into open protests over food scarcity and unaffordability. The hunger protests have united our people across ethnicity, language, region, faith, and location.
“Most distressing is that in all our adversity, our leaders have resorted to spending stupendous amounts of resources on wasteful items like ordering expensive renovations of offices and residences that are already in luxurious conditions.
“We have seen our government spend more money on car parks for politicians than for the running of half of our teaching hospitals. In all this, there has been scanty attention to the living conditions of the ordinary people they were elected to care for.
“The huge amounts of borrowed resources that should have been channeled into production, especially food production, to guarantee an abundant supply of food in the nation, were rather consumed on inanities, rather than invested.
“Today, we are one big nation united by hunger and starvation, to the point of dying to make ends meet, the LP national leader lamented.
On the way forward he said, “Again, I strongly urge the government to lead the crusade against hunger by investing aggressively in our agricultural sector.
“The vast uncultivated lands in the North, as I have always said, are our biggest assets. Now is the time to put them into maximum use for food production in the nation and for exports. In doing this, the government and security agencies must ensure the safety and security of the farmers.”
Obi saluted the resilience and determination of Nigerian people, who in the face of all these challenges, continue to strive hard, with hope for a better nation.
