A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Jesutega Onokpasa has rated the Federal Government low in the production of food.
Over 30 persons were killed and scores injured during stampedes in two parts of the country – Anambra and the FCT – in food distribution events, raising concerns among Nigerians.
Weighing in on the matter, Onokpasa, who is a vocal supporter of President Bola Tinubu, claimed the Federal Government has failed in food security which he said led many of the stampede victims to seek help during the charity events.
“I think the real problem is that we (APC) have failed woefully in producing food for our citizens,” the APC chieftain said on Tuesday’s edition of Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily.
“When we were campaigning for this administration, people were calling us ‘Agbadorians’ because our President [Tinubu] was always talking about producing food but unfortunately, we don’t seem to be producing food and we just have to accept, that’s our fault.”
According to him, the government has not done enough to boost agriculture which he believes is not a hard thing to get.
“The good thing about agriculture is that you can just plant a crop today and harvest in three months or six months or one year and try to convince our president to concentrate on food production. Even if we cannot reduce the price of fuel, let our people have food to eat,” Onokpasa said on the breakfast show.
We (APC) have failed woefully in producing food for our citizens. When we were campaigning for this administration, people were calling us ‘Agbadorians’ because our president was always talking about producing food but unfortunately, we don’t seem to be producing food and we just… pic.twitter.com/BgAbmheYhl
— Channels Television (@channelstv) December 24, 2024
‘Nigerians are Hungry’
“The worst statement the president made during his first presidential media chat is scoring himself ‘excellent’… President Tinubu has done the worst job by any president since independence…”
– Kenneth Okonkwo, Legal Practitioner#SunriseDaily#CTVTweets pic.twitter.com/BxF83oxUDt
— Channels Television (@channelstv) December 24, 2024
Onokpasa was on the show alongside a former chieftain of the Labour Party (LP) Kenneth Okonkwo in the wake of President Tinubu’s maiden media chat where the Nigerian leader attributed the stampedes to poor organisation and indiscipline.
However, Okonkwo linked the stampedes to desperation and hunger.
“This president shifted all the responsibility to the organizers, people who wanted to help people who are hungry. Let me tell you: this stampede happened in the east. It happened in the west. It happened in the north. That means it’s now a general thing that Nigerians from all sectors are hungry and things are hard,” Okonkwo said.
“They did not die in stampedes because they were poor. Poverty exists in every country. They died in a stampede because they were desperately hungry. In other words, they know that if they don’t have that food, they don’t even have anything to fall back in their house, and that is why they had to struggle for N5,000 and grains of rice. The worth of life in Tinubu’s government is now about N5,000 and about [some] grains of rice.”
