Govt is concerned about current hardship, says Information Minister
The minister of information, Mohammed Idris, has expressed that President Bola Tinubu is worried over the public outcry amid hardship in the country.
He said that to lessen the burden on the public, the President has ordered the Presidential Committee to tackle the situation.
Idris said this while briefing State House correspondents after a closed-door meeting with the President’s Chief of Staff, Femi Gbajabiamila, and the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
The Minister stated that there is enough food in the nation, stressing that certain people are attempting to create chaos by taking advantage of the high cost of food and the weakening value of the naira.
He said, “We just rounded off a meeting. It is a special presidential committee to address the issue of food shortage or lack of enough food on the table of most Nigerians.
“This is just the beginning of that meeting. It is going to continue tomorrow and day after tomorrow. The government is very concerned about what Nigerians are going through, especially what has happened in Minna yesterday, and therefore government is taking some action to ensure that Nigerians have some relief in terms of the availability of food on the table.
“Of course, this meeting is not by itself exhaustive. It’s just like I said, the beginning. It is going to continue tomorrow and the day after.
“Now, some of these will involve unlocking the foods that are available in most of the storage facilities (National Food Reserve) around the country. You know that the Federal Minister of Agriculture has some food reserves. That is going to be made available to Nigerians.”
The meeting was held on the heels of the protests by women in Minna, Niger State, and that of angry youths in Kano over the rising cost of living in the country.
Dozens of young people protested in the capital of Niger, Minna, demanding that the government address the high cost of living.
Similarly, a sizable group of young people came together to express their disapproval of what they perceived to be the nation’s rising expense of living.
Since then, the opposition political parties have been accused by the ruling All Progressives Congress of encouraging young people to criticise the administration’s initiatives.
