Former vice president and presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2019 general elections, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, has urged the Federal and States governments to establish a food security military task force to provide security for the nation’s farmers.
Atiku, who was reacting to the warning given by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations on Wednesday, July 29, 2021, of a looming acute food crisis in Northern Nigeria, explained that such a warning should not be ignored.
In a statement he issued on Friday, titled ‘Let Us Address This Looming Food Crisis Before It Becomes a Calamity,’ the former vice president noted that the dire warning should be seen and heard as a whistleblowing moment that ought to draw the focus of the Federal Government, being that Northern Nigeria is the food basket of the nation.
He noted that any famine in Northern Nigeria will have a national impact on the rest of the country and cross border impacts in the West African sub-region.
According to Atiku, the laissez-faire approach taken by the Federal Government to this most important issue is regrettable. “Food security is a vital part of national security, and where this issue is not resolved, the resultant crisis may unsettle the nation and her immediate neighbors.
“Now is the time to proffer solutions, so that our countrymen and women do not starve in a land with so much prospective abundance,” the statement read in part.
While suggesting ways on how to avoid the looming crisis, he explained that the major cause of the present and looming dearth of food is insecurity
