Economic hardship: ‘Allow food importation now to tackle skyrocketing prices’, TUC tells FG
The Trade Union Congress of Nigeria has called on the Federal Government of Nigeria to declare the borders open to allow the importation of food in two weeks to cushion the effects of rising prices of food across the country.
The President of the Trade Union Congress , TUC, Festus Osifo, said this during a press conference on the situation of the country on Monday in Abuja.
He highlighted the screaming level of hardship that has never been witnessed in several decades.
The labour leader stressed that national pride of striving to achieve food sufficiency locally should be temporarily relaxed.
He said, “Nigerians must live to see tomorrow before we can understand how beautiful a government policy is. The national pride of striving to achieve food sufficiency locally should be temporarily relaxed. Governments at all levels should immediately purchase sufficient quantities of food items from different parts of the world and share them with vulnerable Nigerians.
“Importing food abroad at this point will assist to reduce the hyper-inflation of food in the country. FG should allow importation of food items for Nigerians consumption within the next two weeks,” he added.
President Bola Tinubu, had Thursday, announced that he has no plan to set up a price control board or approve the importation of food items into Nigeria.
He vowed that his administration would use home-grown solutions to address the nation’s food security challenges.
”What I will not do is to set a price control board. I will not also approve the importation of food,” the President said, according to a statement by his spokesman, Ajuri Ngelale.
“We should be able to get ourselves out of the situation we found ourselves in, because importation will allow rent seekers to perpetrate fraud and mismanagement at our collective expense. We would rather support farmers with the schemes that will make them go to the farm and grow more food for everyone in the country.
”We must also look at the rapid but thoughtful implementation of our livestock development and management plans, including dairy farming and others,” the President stated.
