15th July, 2023
By Sunday Bassey
The Centre for Human Rights and Accountability Network (CHRAN), has lauded President Bola Tinubu for declaring a state of emergency on food security in the country.
The human rights group said this in a statement signed by its Director, Mr Franklyn Isong and Deputy Director, Public Affairs, Mr Vincent Aluu, respectively and made available to newsmen in Uyo on Saturday.
The statement noted that it was a timely intervention, given the devastating effects of flooding, rising cost of farm inputs in the country.
It also commended the president for approving the immediate release of fertilizers and other farm inputs to help in boosting food security.
The group, however, disagreed on the planned N500 billion palliative to 12 million households to be placed on N8,000 stipend per month for a period of 6 months.
It wondered what the paltry sum of N267.00 per day would do to solve problems of Nigerian given the present low purchasing power and high inflationary trend.
The pro-democracy group queried the method used by the Federal Government to determine the benefitting households.
The group insisted that the programme is another political settlement for the political class and the rich in the corridors of the government at the detriment of the poor masses.
CHRAN noted that the inability of the Nigerian government to identify and properly track its citizens through a well-documented national register in spite of the proliferation of biometric identifications might render the program a wasteful political venture.
CHRAN faulted the allocation of a whooping N70 billion of the palliative fund to the National Assembly members under the guise of “supporting the working conditions of new members.”
The group urged the president to initiate people-centered and good welfare programs that would reduce inflation, unemployment, create empowerment and capacity building through skill acquisition, saying these programs would have direct bearing on the poor masses.
CHRAN called on the president to expedite action in privatizing or outright sell of the nation’s refineries and to make policies favoring modular refineries as permanent solution to the fuel subsidy removal rather than coming up with temporary measures to service the interest of politicians.