By Chibuike Nwabuko
Abuja (Sundiata Post) – Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Abbas Tajudeen has charged the House Committee on Nutrition and Food Security to provide a legislative response to the worsening food insecurity and malnutrition in the country through effective oversight of policies and programmes towards addressing
these twin evils.
Abbas who gave the charge on Thursday during the inauguration of the Committee, reminded that the President had declared a
state of emergency on food insecurity recently. He further urged the Committee to review existing legislation and suggest new legislative frameworks that affect agricultural production, the food supply chain, etc.
In his remarks, the House Leader, Hon Chike John Okafor, who represented the Speaker at the inauguration, hinted that the Committee is very crucial to the vision of the House to “be responsive, results-oriented and effective in performing its constitutional mandate towards the security and welfare of Nigerians’.
He stated that the task of the committee becomes more crucial and urgent in the face of rising food prices and high cost of living occasioned by the withdrawal of
government subsidy on petroleum products. I have no doubt in the capacity of the Chairman and members of the committee to deliver on this onerous task of providing immediate solution to the growing food and nutrition crisis in the country.
According to the Speaker, “Nigeria, like the rest of the world, is experiencing a food crisis, exacerbated by climate change, rising inflation and pervasive insecurity. Hence, the decision of the House to set up a Committee that would be dedicated to fashioning legislative measures and actions to tackle the menace of food insecurity and malnutrition affecting our people.
Abbas who urged the committee to enlist the support and collaboration of relevant stakeholders to achieve success in the overall interest of Nigeria, expressed confidence in the competence of the chairman and members of the committee to rise to the
occasion and be able to come up with effective legislative roadmap on how to deal with this ugly situation.
- Quoting the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Abbas said about 26.5 million Nigerians would be grappling with high levels of food insecurity in 2024 while the country is said to have the second highest burden of malnutrition in the world, with 32% of children under the age of
five stunted or chronically mainourished. - “Malnutrition currently impacts 35 million children under the age of five, among whom 12 million are stunted, 3 million are wasted, and 23.5 million suffer from anemia. An additional 17.7 million individuals are facing hunger, with 2.6 million children confronting severe acute malnutrition in 2024.
- Among women of childbearing age, 7%
experience severe acute malnutrition. These figures may exacerbate due to the current food inflation rate, which stands
at about 33.7% (according to the Central Bank of Nigeria).” - “Furthermore, the World Food Programme’s September 2023 publication of the ‘Nigeria Hunger Map’ estimates that 24.9 million Nigerians are in an acute or critical stage of hunger, categorized as an emergency, while 85.8 million Nigerians have insufficient food consumption. Among this population, 47.7
million Nigerians resort to crisis-level or above-crisis-level food- based coping strategies. - He noted that the above data paints a very gloomy picture requiring urgent
legislative action. This is particularly so given that some of the causative factors are issues within the legislative competence
of the House to deal with. - The Speaker stressed that the food and nutrition crisis affecting us as a nation is partly caused by global warming and climate change, pervasive insecurity across the country which prevents farmers and herders from engaging in their various agricultural activities, poor Irrigation, outdated land tenure system, crude and traditional farm practices on subsistence levels as well as a myriad of other challenges.
- Abbas called on every stakeholder and experts in this area to provide the needed support and partner with the Committee to meet the objective for which it was established. He reiterated the position of the House to improved food and nutrition for our people.
- He further stated that in our resolve as a House to tame hunger and malnutrition, pursue food security and sustainable development, we prioritized agricultural development as a key legislative agenda based on our strong belief that agricultural sector is a critical factor in growing the nation’s economy and scaling down poverty rate.
- He re-echoed the commitment of the House to enacting policies and legislative trameworks towards supporting farmers with subsidies, access to credits and modern agricultural equipment to stimulate enhanced agricultural productivity. This he said, will also have a far-reaching impact in addressing the multifaceted challenges of food insecurity and malnutrition.
Speaking, the Chairman of the Committee, Hon Chike John Okafor, said that it was the first time in the history of the legislature in Nigeria that the leadership of the House thought it necessary to set up a distinct and exclusive Committee for greater legislative attention to critical interventions in the cross-cutting issues of food and nutrition.
“The creation of this committee would serve as a swift response to the present economic realities, especially the current unaffordability of basic foods in Nigeria arising from uncontrolled inflation and scarce means,” he noted.
In his remarks, the Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, Atiku Bagudu expressed the commitment of the Federal Government to ensuring adequate nutrition and food security for the citizens.
According to Bagudu, the challenges of nutrition and food security have drawn the attention of many stakeholders in the country.
