On Tuesday, Sen. Ali Ndume, the Senate Chief Whip at plenary adopted a motion on “The Introduction of Food Stamps in Nigeria as an Interim Measure to Address Imminent Food Insecurity in the country.
Presenting the motion, Ndume said that in other countries, like U. S, food stamps was government-issued coupons that had been in use since 1939.
As an interim intervention to cushion the effect of food shortage in the country, the senate advocate to the Federal Government to introduce the Nigerian version of the “food stamps programme”.
Ndume said, “This is as a measure to cushion the resultant hardships and sufferings on the poor/less privileged as well as low-income earners.”
He expressed concerns over the October Cadre Harmonise Analysis on food insecurity which projected that in 2024, Nigeria was expected to see about 26.5 million people grappling with high levels of food insecurity.
The lawmaker said the reason for the above projection was not far-fetched as several indicators which included but were not limited to the ongoing conflicts across the country and climate change impacts.
Ndume said that many hungry and angry Nigerians had been expressing their frustration and anger over the recent increase in food prices by demonstrating on the streets in several cities across the country.
He said that the clamour for a wage increase and work support could not alone guarantee a more effective way of addressing food insecurity without the introduction of a time-tested public assistance programme.
In his contribution, Sen. Solomon Adeola (APC-Ogun) called for the deployment of modern technology to curb abuses.
“The question is how do we achieve this for over 200 million population, a data must be in place to ensure that the real vulnerable Nigerians get it,” he said.