How is the president not aware of the terror caused by Bandits and Herdsmen? President Muhammadu Buhari while giving his speech on Independence Day on Friday the 1st of October 2021, blamed middlemen for hoarding food and other essential commodities and thereby causing food shortages. This statement is very problematic because it tends to deny the already existing, known truth and the main cause of our suffering. it is sad to deny the actual reasons for the hike of food prices.
The President informed the masses in his speech that production capacity has increased, food prices have been going up, due to artificial shortages created by middlemen so we can’t categorically say that we do not have food but rather the middlemen are hoarding these foods and making it difficult for the common man to access them.
The president also instructed the security agencies to deal with people who hoard food, he also directed the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to work with the Security agencies to ensure that no one hoards food which is the sole reason for the hike in food price.
As a response to the president’s speech many Nigerians disagreed with the president’s statement saying that middlemen hoarding food is not the reason for the hike of food price but rather the bandits on our roads who make transporting these goods from one state to another difficult, because they are made to pay a certain amount of money at every stop on the road and also the Herdsmen should be blamed for the fear they have instilled in Nigerians not everyone is bold enough to enter the road because they do not know what awaits them.
We have a few people who are willing to take that bold step, so what do we expect after they must have taken the risk, the only option left is to increase the price to get what they have lost on the way. these farmers and traders are not tasked by the government alone but by these bandits.
Insecurity plays a great role on this issue and the president and everyone in power should do something about it to make life easy for the common man. These farmers are even scared of going to their farms, so what do we expect? The whole statement about increase in food production is not all true because the major places where these foods are been produced are ambushed by these terrorists. Is Benue state still the food basket of the nation? what has changed? our society is now unsafe for the masses and this is what changed. There is no peace, people are been killed in there farm lands and this can only make life difficult.
