High cost of food: Makurdi bizman tasks FG on ending insecurity
ABenue State-based businessman, Chief Isaac Akinkunmi, has urged the federal government to show more seriousness in ending insecurity in order to tame increasing cost of food commodities in the country.
Chief Akinkunmi who resides in Makurdi, made the remark in an interview with our correspondent during the Share-a-Bull raffle draw organised by his Tito Group of Companies as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to mark this year’s Christmas and New Year celebrations for their customers.
He said, “The government should be more serious about ending insecurity. I don’t know why the issue of security is being politicised. Declare bandits terrorists; I don’t know why that will become an argument? If somebody comes to your house and steals you, kills you, if you are unable to pay ransom, what act of terrorism is more than that?
“To me, I don’t think it’s a subject that invites debates; anything that will be done and whatever name will be given to this group of people in order to stem the trajectory of banditry should be done because without security, production will fall and the GDP will go low, while disposable income will vanish.
“So, security is number one, and then there is no project government is doing if the citizenry for which it is being done cannot enjoy because of insecurity. It’s unfortunate that we are having a country that you don’t only provide your own electricity, you provide your own water and worst still now, you provide your own security, then what is government for?”
He noted further at the Tito Multipurpose Building along David Mark Bypass in Makurdi that the raffle draw was “our way of appreciating the various customers for patronage over the years. Their support, their loyalty. We thought that we should do something at the end of every year to appreciate them since we can’t appreciate everybody with individual gifts. So we made a raffle draw for them to share a bull at Christmas and for the New Year to be rewarding.”
The businessman added that as a matter of fact what was spent on a cow last year was just a fraction of what was spent this year buying a cow for the yuletide.
He explained that, “The price has quadrupled. The cost of everything has gone up; the rate at which prices of especially food items shot up is unprecedented. It has affected business because people have less disposable income in their pockets, salaries are not growing and cost of living is growing. So it’s a burden on salary earners. You know Benue is a civil service state; whatever affects civil servants’ salary wise affects businessmen like us.
“I will advise my customers to have a second stream of income because salaries can’t take customers far with these inflation that seemed to be growing at a rate that the end is not in sight. So, second income by way of trading or farming is important but unfortunately, insecurity has been a problem and contributory to inflation because farmers can no longer go to farms especially in Benue where farmers have been in IDP camps for years. Government ought to do something about security with political determination.”