Presudent Bola Tinubu
Hunger has become a pandemic in Nigeria, and unfortunately the current government has displayed in the main, a triangular attitude of apathy, cynicism and open mockery.
The paradox and irony of it all is that same government is responsible for astronomical spike in the rate of hunger. It is no longer in contention that what is responsible for the jump in this ugly phenomenon is the inability of the administration to turn around the security architecture to effectively tackle the bugbear of banditry which is the core of insecurity in the food belt of Benue and northwest part of the country.
Closely allied with this is the economic policies of government, the most notable being the removal of petroleum subsidy which has led to unprecedented food inflation making it impossible for the common man to access it.
The uncritical wholesome admission of the IMF and the World Bank prescriptions for the so-called economic ills of the country is responsible for the sufferings and hardship in the country.
NATIONAL WAVES is of the view that the current government ought to have domesticated the locus of the solution in the context of the prevailing social and economic context of the basic economic challenges; instead of total adoption. It would seem this government is ignorant of the history of these Bretton Wood Institutions, the reasons for their creation, their adversarial and oppositional relation to the economic development of developing nations of the global south, including Nigeria.
The beginning of economic dislocation of the country started with IMF-inspired Structural Adjustment programme of the Ibrahim Babangida administration of which we are yet to recover from.
According to current statistics released by National Bureau of Statistics, poverty rate has snowballed into 130 million as against 70 million populations during the Buhari administration.
The Tinubu administration so-called palliatives did not reach the targeted populations, even as meager and minimal as it is, it was mopped up by the governors. The import waiver for food import which the administration promised in the thick of End Bad Governance protest never saw light of day. The government promised to sell a bag of rice at subsidized rate of N40,000 yet Nigerians are yet to see its actualization. Governments all over the world provide food security for their citizens, but it would seem in our own case the opposite is the truth.
