The pressure on foodstuff and other edibles has snowballed into people grumbling loudly on the streets, and not merely in their bedrooms. Daily, the cost of living goes a step higher than the day before – just when you were thinking, it could not be worse than yesterday! There are regional threats to embargo food migration from one section of Nigeria to another, while the government, in typical knee-jerk reactions, has been running around in circles to find answers to the immediate and present danger of food scarcity
THOUGH one is not versed in economics, not to mention macroeconomics…we however remember that some people warned years ago when our political leaders were throwing money at poverty, claiming they were trying to help the poor, especially the vulnerable poor, with all sorts of schemes: Sure-P, Trader-Moni, N-Power, Anchor-borrower, etc. Instead of the poor getting out of the grind of poverty, today we look back in biting frustration as the number of Nigerians below the poverty line has exploded uncontrollably.
Few years ago, some people familiar with the intricacies and twirls of economic inevitability warned us that the ways and means we were printing money to offset our incredible thirst for foreign exchange and fulfilling wooly campaign promises… would lead to 1,000 of our dear Naira going for only $1. Poor naira. Alarming as that sounded, nowadays we are shocked daily as the naira continues to fall like a luckless orphan, torpedoing to hitherto unbelievable figures – ₦1,800 to the dollar!
The pressure on foodstuff and other edibles has snowballed into people grumbling loudly on the streets, and not merely in their bedrooms. Daily, the cost of living goes a step higher than the day before – just when you were thinking, it could not be worse than yesterday! There are regional threats to embargo food migration from one section of Nigeria to another, while the government, in typical knee-jerk reactions, has been running around in circles to find answers to the immediate and present danger of food scarcity.
Yet, the president is insisting he would not support setting up a price control mechanism to stem the spiralling hikes in food prices. Apparently, he seems worried about the antics of few Nigerians who gleefully play the roles of profiteers, renters, hoarders, and such unscrupulous economic saboteurs. As a free market apostle, the president wants his government to speedily intervene, and flood the country with food and agricultural products, to checkmate the lecherous middlemen. Let’s join hands to pray for their interventions to work out as planned, and with immediate effect.
Nonetheless, the president should start thinking of some sort of control in a land where some of us would not ignore any opportunity to make extra money simply because the president has ordered law enforcement agents to seek and confiscate warehouses hoarding food items.
