The African Democratic Congress, ADC, has described reports that more than 17 million Nigerians, including infants and young children, are facing acute hunger as a growing humanitarian disaster created by the President Bola Tinubu administration’s incompetence, misplaced priorities and failed policies.
ADC’s spokesman, Bolaji Abdullahi said Nigerians are dying of starvation under his administration.
He was reacting to a United Nations World Food Programme, WFP, report showing that more than 17 million Nigerians across nine conflict-affected northern states are facing acute hunger.
A statement signed by Abdullahi, condemned the Tinubu-led APC Federal Government for what it described as its “cruel indifference” to the growing humanitarian crisis brought about principally by its failure to contain the banditry and terrorism that has displaced farming communities, as well as the harsh economic policies that have pushed food beyond the reach of millions of Nigerians.
The full statement read: “The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has received with profound concern the latest assessment by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), which confirms that Nigeria is now facing one of its worst food security emergencies in almost a decade.”
“According to the WFP, more than 17 million Nigerians across nine conflict-affected northern states are now facing Crisis, Emergency or Catastrophic levels of food insecurity.”
“This represents an increase of almost two million people from previous projections. In Borno State alone, more than three million people are acutely food insecure, while the combined figure for Borno, Adamawa and Yobe has risen to 6.2 million people.
“These are not opposition figures. They are not campaign slogans. They are the findings of the world’s leading humanitarian agency on hunger.
“In other words, the hunger confronting millions of Nigerians today is not a natural disaster. It is an APC-inspired government-created humanitarian disaster.
“This humanitarian crisis is also the predictable outcome of a government that has failed to secure Nigerian lives, failed to protect Nigerian farmers and failed to address the cost-of-living crisis that it has created.
“For three years, the Tinubu government has repeatedly told Nigerians that the pain that we experiencing is temporary. The WFP has now confirmed what Nigerians have been saying all along: insecurity is spreading, agricultural production is declining, food inflation is worsening and millions of us, the Nigerian people, are being pushed deeper into hunger.”
