Southern Nigerian People’s Mandate (SNPM) has called on President Bola Tinubu to urgently address the issue of hunger and hardship in the country.
The group said if the president failed to address the issues steering at him, it will lead Nigeria to disaster that it can never recover.
In a statement, SNPM President, Augustine Chukwudum, and its Secretary, Segun Diya, said any country that neglects agriculture will always end up in ruins.
“That is why we are calling on Mr. President to do something meaningful to eradicate hunger because you don’t expect someone who cannot afford three square meals a day to be happy while the people who are entrusted with our natural resources to manage are busy stealing billions of naira daily.
“The problem with Nigeria rulers/leaders for the past 60 years is that they surrounded themselves with people who are singing their praises and not professional who will do the right thing. Few days ago, the minister of agriculture lied to the world that his ministry has cultivated 300,000 hectares of farm land across the country.
“Do you know the size of land mentioned by this minister is more than one state in southern part of Nigeria that’s the kind of people President Tinubu appointed as minister, someone who will not be ashamed to lie in a country where we are not visitors but residents and origin, this is a county where terrorists have chased away farmers from the farm lands and kidnapped farmers, killed majority while those who remain are paying taxes to terrorist in other to access their farm lands and yet our minister will not be ashamed to lie.
“More than 50 per cent of farmers in northern part of the country which produces more than 85 per cent of the food we consume cannot go to farm anymore because of terrorists.
“SNPM hereby makes the following suggestions on the way forward: President Tinubu must strengthen the naira by reducing $1 to N200 and further reduce to N100 by end of September 2024. This will go a long way in reducing the cost of agriculture equipment, transportation; President Tinubu must involve technology in flushing out terrorists in the country because that is one of his major campaign promises before the 2023 general election.
“President Tinubu said ‘I will use drone to flush out terrorists’, we are yet to see it fulfilled that is why we are calling on him to start immediately to end insecurity in the country; the Federal Government must purchase tractors to farmers to enable them operate mechanised system because Nigeria has excess arable land for farming with this our farmers will produce excess food to feed our country at affordable price while the remaining will be processed and export thereby creating more jobs and money to the people.
“It is shameful that today farmers are still using hoe to farm while smaller countries are using tractors, that is why we are calling on the Federal Government to make tractors available to farmers,” the group said.
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