To guarantee
food security among Nigeria’s teeming population, Emir of Argungu, Samai’la
Muhammad Mera has called on the National Assembly to pass the Right to Food
Bill without further hesitation.
He made the
call while responding to a detailed presentation on the Right to Food Bill by
the Chairman of Voices for Food Security (VFS), Gbolagade Ayoola, who led the
coalition of civil society groups on advocacy to promote right of every
Nigerian to food. Mera, who expressed surprise that Nigeria is yet to have food
as a fundamental human right enshrined in the constitution, solicited for
collective effort to make it happen.
Earlier,
Gbolagade Ayoola who is also the president of Farm and Infrastructure
Foundation (FIF) informed the Emir that, the latest World Hunger Index
published by International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) indicates
that as at last year (2017), with an index value of 25.5, ranked Nigeria 84th
among 119 countries in the category of “Serious Hunger Prevalence”. This, he
said, implies that about three quarter of its population (about 150 million
people) presently suffers from adult malnutrition, child stunting, child
wasting and child mortality, all linked to food insecurity of the country.
Ayoola went further to buttress the fact that the universality of the subject
matter also exists in the number of countries of the world that have adopted
the concept of food as a right or passed a right to food bill as the basis for
implementing food policies.
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