Open Letter To Gov. Oborevwori: Make Massive Food Production A Priority, Set Up Food Discount Market To Cushion Hunger

By Comr. Emeka Nwokocha

Your Excellency, Rt. Hon. Sheriff Oborevwori, I bring greetings to you once more and wish you great success as you make huge effort to navigate our great Delta State through the hard economic situation tormenting our nation currently.

Your Excellency, may I once again bring to your knowledge the excruciating hardship and scorching hunger Deltans are confronted with in recent times, occasioned by the worsening economy and acute food crisis in Nigeria.

You will recall that the impromptu and shoddy removal of fuel subsidy by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu eventually plunged our country’s fragile economy into chaos and afflicted it with indescribable inflation with attendant serious hardship and frightening hunger plaguing the populace currently.

To say the least, it is painful to note that the price of every essential commodity that gives life a meaning has increased beyond 400%. Most alarming is the astronomical increase in the prices of foodstuff so much that poor Nigerian families can’t buy food anymore to feed their children.

Your Excellency, for purpose of clarity, l sincerely present below the prices of few food items in the local market for your perusal. One basket of beans is sold at N8000 (one cup of beans is N500); one basket of rice is sold at N7000 (one cup of rice is N400); and one basket of garri is sold at N4000 (one cup of garri is N300). In short, every day in the present Nigeria, the life of poor Nigerians hangs in the balance as the hardship continues unabated.

Your Excellency, the grave impact of the seeming intractable food crisis is already having its toll on the teeming population of Delta state and the children are mostly endangered with evidence of cases of malnutrition staring us in face.

The situation is alarming and may get worse with possibility of Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) endangering the lives of our children across the state.

Your Excellency, to buttress my concern for the harm acute food insecurity will cause to Delta State if measures were not taken to cushion worsening starvation, is the scathing data by UNICEF stating that 100 children die of malnutrition in Nigeria almost every hour. In response to this frightening data, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is currently providing help to malnourished children in north east Nigeria and would extend its reach to other states where malnutrition has been noticed.

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Your Excellency, I passionately call on you to take crucial measures to combat the looming acute malnutrition by implementing policies that will subsidize the cost of foodstuffs as an interim action, and progress to activating a permanent action by retooling your policies to prioritize adequate funding of the agriculture sector in order to increase food production and other agriculture produce that will enhance living.

Your Excellency, I charge you not to gloss over this appeal I’m passionately making to you, if nothing, but to save our vulnerable children and poor families from the shackles of hardship, starvation and menacing malnutrition.

Without mincing words, none of your policies will make better impact on the lives of poor Deltans than prioritizing food production to meet the dietary need of the teeming Deltans and promoting a healthy population.

Your Excellency, to cap this piece, I reiterate that Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) remains a significant concern in our country and 3.6 million children are being endangered currently.

Therefore, expanding sustainable local access to affordable life-saving nutrition commodities is essential to stem the scourge in Delta State.

Some states have shown courage to ameliorate hardship among the people through setting up of food discount market and distribution of foodstuffs.

You have the capacity to do same for Deltans and you will be greatly appreciated by the people. This is a golden opportunity beckoning to you and you could write your name in the heart of the people and earn their accolades if you would listen to their heart-wrenching plight and do the needful without wasting time.

I will round off this piece with a reference to Section 14 (2b) of the 1999 constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria (as amended), which provides that, “The security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government.”

I will always support your administration with wise counsels.

God Bless You…!

Comr. Emeka is a journalist and Human Rights Activist.