NIGERIANS ARE NOW BEGGARS, EX-AGF

The former Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Michael Aondoakaa (SAN) has said that the economic situation of the country is turning Nigerians to beggars.

The former AGF said this on Thursday in an interview on the state of the nation aired on Arise TV.

Since President Bola Ahmed Tinubu assumed office in May 2023, his economic reforms have induced severe hardship on Nigerians – a reality which he has admitted several times.

The removal of fuel subsidy and introduction of a managed float of the naira by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has led to a surge in prices as the National Bureau of Statistics measured inflation at 33.95 per cent in May, 2024.

Meanwhile, food inflation has skyrocketed to 40.66 per cent as of May.

The government is also grappling with insecurity which has affected the country’s agricultural hubs like Benue, Kaduna, Niger and Jigawa States.

Aondoakaa said, “The situation is not very encouraging. First, the situation in the Middle Belt where we produce a lot of food and generally in Nigeria that are agricultural states. The real issues facing the nation may be classified majorly into two: the issue of hunger and insecurity and both of them are tied together.

“I am a Tiv man, our people don’t beg and in most parts of the country, the farmers don’t beg. They produce their food. But if we go to rural areas now, the insecurity has been so intense that the farmers can’t go to farm and they are coming to compete with the middle class people.

“If the security is handled, 50 per cent of the hunger in the country will be reduced because our farmers will go back to farms, they will produce for subsistence consumption and sell the surplus.

“Now, even subsistent production is becoming impossible. Go to my state (Benue State), you can’t access the farm, the herders have taken over the farmlands and they are extremely brutal.

“The farmers cannot go to the farm.

“Ordinary cassava that we used to eat with beniseed (sesame)…”

Aside from the farmer-herders crisis, Aodoakaa said there are cases of banditry and kidnapping which is compounding the hardship Nigerians are facing.

“The maximum and constitutional provision of the government is protection of lives and property and I feel; that if the government can minimise this rising threat of insecurity to the barest minimum, our country will bounce back,” the SAN added.