The Initiative for Global Advocacy (IFGA) has urged the 10th National Assembly to enact a law establishing food banks in the country, to ameliorate the suffering of Nigerians due to the continuous fall in the Naira value.
The chairman of the group, Mr Johnson Masheni, made this known in a statement in Lagos on Tuesday.
Masheni said there was the need for a law to establishing a food distribution agency that would ensure that foodstuffs and other edibles were easily accessible across the country.
He said, “There is hunger in the land, ironically, an athlete doesn’t realise his errors on the pitch but the spectators do, and it is impossible for the athlete to become independent of the coach.
“We have seen the ordinary Nigerians struggling to feed, which can only be liken to a man swimming in an ocean with soap in his eyes.
“It is on this basis that we are writing to request the 10th National Assembly to enact a law establishing food banks in Nigeria to ameliorate the suffering of the people.
“We are advocating for a legislation to establish a food distribution agency that will ensure that foodstuffs and other edibles are easily accessible across Nigeria.
“This is what Nigeria needs. Our food banking ideology is based on Chapter 2 section 16 (2)(d) of the 1999 constitution as amended.
“This is suitable and adequate shelter, adequate food, reasonable national minimum living wage, old age care and pensions, and unemployment, sick benefits and welfare of the disabled are provided for all citizens.”
Masheni also drawn the 10th National Assembly to address the continuous falling of the value of the Naira against other currencies.
He explained that this was because the operation of any nation’s currency was directly proportional to the enhancement of the country’s economic system.
The chairman said the group had been consciously monitoring the devaluation of the Naira for a while, adding that it had been recording an unfavourable performance against other currencies.
He recalled that the Naira performed tremendously well against other World Currencies in the 1960s, in the 1970s in the 1980s, in the 1990s and in the early 2000.
Masheni advised the government to identify or strike a balance between politics and professionalism by officials of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to reverse the fall in Naira value.
