Naira Devaluation: Group urges NASS to enact law establishing food banks
By Yunus Yusuf
The Initiative for Global Advocacy (IFGA) has urged the 10th National Assembly to enact a Law establishing Food banks in Nigeria to ameliorate the suffering of the people 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 Monday.
Masheni said there was urgent need for a legislation to establish a food distribution agency that would ensure that foodstuffs and other edibles were easily accessible across the country.
According to him, there is hunger in the land, ironically, the Athletes don’t realize his errors on the pitch but the spectators do, and it is impossible for the Athlete to become independent of the coach.
He said: “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 bases 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 need and not Palliatives. 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 the continuous falling of the value of the Nigeria Naira against almost all the World 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 over the years taken pain to consciously monitor the trajectory through which the Nigeria Naira had been devalued in recent times and its attendant unfavorable performance against other world currencies.
He recalled that the Nigeria 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 said it was not out of place when the current President Bola Tinubu in 2015 promised Nigerians that one Naira would be equals one Dollar while campaigning for former President Muhammadu Buhari, it was possible!
The chairman said they only need the right legislation which would technically silence the doubting Thomas’s and by putting square pegs in square holes at this critical time of our bleeding economy.
He remembered that the resources available at those times were meager compare to what was available to them as a country today, while they were not unawares of their population growth over the years as a factor in the indices for consideration.
Masheni observed that there had been series of monetary policies from one government to another and all had resulted into some kind of monetary policy somersault thereby bringing severe hardship on the Nigeria people.
He said: “The President of the Nigeria Senate, we are well meaning citizens are most concern about the way the currency of our great country is being devalued.
“This is unfavorable competition of the Nigeria Naira against other currencies of the world, we have equally x-rayed the root cost of the problems in the Nigeria Financial sector as follows:
“Political appointees to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) lacks the capacity to manage financial indicators with the challenges of combining professionalism with political loyalty.
“Also, error in the appointment of the Minister of Finance, appointment of a non-finance professional into the Ministry of Finance has always been counterproductive.
“This is because a Minister of Finance who is not abreast with financial indicators cannot query any monetary policy, whether good or bad, which was our case in the recent past.”
Masheni attributed the fall in Naira value to inability to identify or strike a balance between politics and professionalism by officials of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
The chairman said lack of political will to defend or protect the Nigeria Naira against other world currencies due to lack of patriotism and selfish interest by the Nigeria elites.
He decried deliberate devaluation of the Nigeria Naira to favor the international community’s for personal political/economy gains and to make up for inadequacies and corruption due to incompetence or inefficiencies.
