By Amuda Dan Sulaiman Fab
Worried by the growing high cost of food items and other commodities in Nigeria, the Lokoja chapter of the National Council of Muslim Youth Organisation, (NACOMYO), has held a summit to address the issue.
At the 3rd Islamic Summit held on Sunday at Majesty International College Lokongoma, Lokoja, Chairman of the occasion, Justice Abdulkarim Aruwa, the Grand Khadi of Kogi State, appealed to the federal government to as a matter of urgency, evolve a means through which the continuous and arbitrary increase in prices of foodstuffs will come to an end.
Aruwa said it becomes exigent in view of the daily embarrassing ratio at which Nigerians have found it difficult to feed their families due to the unstable prices of commodities in the market even before the Eid-el-Kabir and till date.
He expressed surprise that prices of the conventional staple foods like a bag of rice, could as at today, cost the sum of over N80,000, with a bag of beans being sold at over N200,000, while traders nationwide could not offer any acceptable reason for such astronomical increase.
Aruwa passionately appealed to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu not to hesitate in wedging the big hammer of the law on those marketers who are hell bent of sabotaging the economic policies of his administration, stressing that if the trend continues, it could compel many to steal to feed their families even against their wishes.
“In the case of Kogi State, let us form a tink tank the will draw up a blue print that would be presented to the governor for necessary actions.
“Thank God, one of the Commissioners is here. He will help us in doing that,” Aruwa stressed.
In his keynote address, the Kogi State Chairman of NACOMYO, Alhaji Sulaiman Dansoho, commended the Lokoja local government chapter of the association for it’s consistency in organising annual Islamic Summit calling on other local government chapters to emulate them.
On the high cost of living, the NACOMYO Chairman called on business people to desist from hoarding foodstuffs for selfish gains.
“The current trying-time ordinary Nigerians are experiencing, occasioned by food insecurity, inflation, abject poverty and insecurity is distressing and calls for serious redress.
“Nigerians are grappling with inflation and economic hardship that were exacerbated by the removal of fuel subsidies in May last year,” Dansoho lamented.
The ceremony was attended by Islamic Scholars, traditional rulers, top government officials, Islamic groups and a host of others.
Highlights of the event was a guest lecture delivered by Professor Abdullahi Ahmad Gbobe on economic principles and it’s applications controlling food inflation in Nigeria, presentation of awards to prominent Kogites including the Speaker, Kogi State House of Assembly,, Rt, Hon. Umar Yusuf, a medical outreach and drama staged by primary school pupils on the economic situation of country.
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