A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Olatunbosun Oyintiloye, has urged President Bola Tinubu to consider the reopening of the Benin Republic border for the importation of food to solve the problem of food crisis in the country.
In a statement made available to our correspondent in Osogbo, Osun state, Sunday, Oyintiloye stressed that Nigerians are hungry and living below the poverty line.
He lamented that many households were finding it difficult to have three square meals as a result of the prevailing harsh economy.
Oyintiloye also urged the president not to ignore the United Nations’ prediction that 82 million Nigerians, which is about 64 per cent of the country’s population, may go hungry by 2030.
He noted that the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) data revealed that the food inflation rate in the country hit a record high of 40.66 per cent in May, surpassing the previous month’s 40.53 increase.
Oyintiloye, a former member of the defunct APC Presidential Campaign Council (PCC), also said the common household food items were getting out of the reach of the common man due to the hike in prices.
He noted that even though Nigerians are working hard under different dehumanising conditions, what they were earning was still not enough to sustain them and their families due to inflation.
According to him, despite the abundance of natural and human resources the country is blessed with, successive governments have failed to drive the economy productively.
He said corruption and over-dependence on the system of sharing crude oil revenue by the tiers of government was hindering them from running a productive and self-sufficient economy for the benefit of the masses.
Oyintiloye noted that it was rather unfortunate that with all the efforts of the president, prices of food and other essentials had continued to be on the increase.
“I will want to urge the president to, as a matter of urgency, declare a state of emergency on hunger, starvation, and poverty in the country.
“Hunger is a threat to national peace, and that is why the president must act very fast,” he said.