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Give unemployed youths free land to farm, Utomi tells Tiinubu
A political economist and 2007 presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress, Prof. Pat Utomi, has advised President Bola Tinubu on ways to tackle Nigeria’s surging inflation and food security crisis.
Tinubu, in his New Year address, pledged to prioritise food production and achieve economic stability by implementing policies aimed at reducing inflation and ensuring food security.
The President also pleaded his administration’s commitment to reduce inflation from its current 34.6 per cent to 15 per cent.
But Utomi said the success of the President’s goals would depend on his administration’s ability to tackle insecurity, provide incentives for farmers, and implement effective agricultural policies to create a stable and sustainable food production system in the country.
Utomi, who spoke in an interview with Saturday PUNCH, cautioned against the idea of massive food importation as a solution, warning that it would worsen Nigeria’s foreign exchange problems and undermine local agricultural production.
He argued that imported food would remain costly due to unfavourable exchange rates, maintaining that any subsidy on such imports would harm the nation’s capacity for sustainable food production.
Utomi said, “There is hunger, real hunger in the land. One of the biggest causes of inflation is food price inflation and it is central to how people feel and their abilities to do other things.
“To address this, the government needs to make a deliberate policy to push down the cost of food by investing in agriculture, giving massive incentives to young people to make farming attractive to them and check insecurity as quickly as possible.”
To address insecurity, Utomi proposed the creation of special agricultural security forces, forest rangers”, to protect farmlands and prevent clashes between farmers and herders or attacks by bandits.
He called on the government to support farmers to embark on irrigation schemes to enable year-round farming.
“The government should create schemes for unemployed youths, provide them with one hectare of land each, supply inputs, and train them in modern agricultural practices. In 90 days, we could see a significant increase in food production that would force down prices,” Utomi explained.
Criminals dressed in fake military uniforms opened fire on spectators at a cockfight in rural Ecuador, killing 12 unarmed people and wounding several others, police in the violence-plagued South American nation said Friday.
Security footage of Thursday night’s attack showed a group of at least five men entering the arena and opening fire with automatic rifles on a crowd of dozens in the rural community of La Valencia in northwest Ecuador.
The attackers were dressed in replica military uniforms — a common tactic of criminal gangs in the country, which averaged a killing every hour at the start of the year as cartels vie for control over cocaine routes that pass through Ecuador’s ports.
The footage, circulated on social media, showed spectators flinging themselves to the ground and taking cover under their seats.
“We have 12 people deceased as a result of an armed attack by a criminal group,” police colonel Renan Miller Rivera said in a statement Friday.
He said several people were injured, without giving a number.
Police have detained four people, including a “target of intermediate value,” national police chief Victor Hugo Zarate wrote on the X social platform.
After the attack, police found discarded “military-style uniforms” and two abandoned cars on a nearby highway, Miller Rivera added. One of the cars had been set on fire, the other had overturned.
Ecuador is home to around 20 criminal gangs involved in trafficking, kidnapping and extortion. They have wreaked havoc in the country of 18 million squeezed between the world’s biggest cocaine producers, Peru and Colombia.
In recent years, the nation has been plunged into violence by the rapid spread of transnational cartels that use its ports to ship drugs to the United States and Europe.
The Senator representing Taraba Central Senatorial District, Senator Haruna Manu celebrates Easter with Christians in Taraba and Nigeria in general calling on them to coexist peacefully.
Manu in his message said, the festivity which is actually after the Lenten period calls for sober reflection and prayers.
“As we celebrate Easter may the Almighty God yield to our prayer requests and bless the works of our hands.
“I congratulate our christian brothers and sisters as we celebrate Easter and coexist peacefully in our beloved country.
A member of the House of Representatives, Kabiru Alhassan Rirum, has appealed to hunters from the Northern states to desist from moving to the South for hunting purposes.
Kabiru, who represents Rano/Bunkure/ Kibya Federal Constituency reasoned that such movement for hunting purposes was no longer feasible in the present- day Nigeria.
Speaking during a condolence visit to the families of the Uromi hunters in Torankawa town in Bunkure LGA of Kano State on Thursday, Rirum, stressed that the present day Nigeria requires people doing businesses that would not create suspicion that might result or lead to uncertaintie.
“Carrying dangerous weapons and moving around with them from one end to another in this sensitive period of insecurity in the land will surely send a bad signal and results in chaos,” he said.
He recalled that recently over 30 hunters from Rano were apprehended in Ondo State, adding that he had to personally reach out to the Ondo State governor, including showing clear evidence that they were not criminals, before they were released. Rirum, who condoled the victims’ families with the sum of N5 million, pledged to build an Islamic school in the area to cater for the orphans of the deceased hunters.
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