Human rights lawyer and activist Femi Falana has warned that Nigeria is facing a grave humanitarian crisis due to the rising food prices and the government’s failure to intervene.
In an interview with Channels on Saturday, Falana said that the government had neglected its duty to protect the welfare of the people by allowing the market forces to determine the prices of essential commodities.
He said that the government had previously enforced the law and punished those who sold goods beyond the fixed prices, as stipulated by the Price Control Act of 1977.
He said that the act was meant to prevent the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few or a group, and to ensure that the majority of the people had access to affordable food.
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He stated, “There are times when the government had enforced the law. People were convicted, people were jailed for selling goods beyond the fixed prices, and in any case there is a price control board because the economy shall be managed and operated in such a manner that the wealth of a country is not concentrated on the hands of a few or a group, and the only way you can do that is for the government to intervene decisively on behalf of the majority of our people. This is the essence of the price control act by the way.”
He said that the government’s claim that there was abundance of food in the country was contradicted by the reality of hunger, malnutrition, and kwashiorkor among the children.
“More so, that the government is insisting that there is abundance of food in Nigeria, therefore, the government must intervene and ensure that the people have access to such food items because people are already dying of hunger, kwashiorkor in our children, and people are forced to come out now, people are protesting and the earlier the government moves speedily to arrest the ugly development, the country may be sitting on a keg of gunpowder,” he said.