Nigeria May Face Food Starvation Due To COVID-19 Lockdown

The Poultry Association of Nigeria (PAN) has warned that the country may face starvation in 2021 due to the lockdown across the nation caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

The President of the association, Mr Ezekiel Ibrahim Mam, made this known in a telephone interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Friday. He said:

“This year 2020, we are at least better off because we have enough food on ground but in 2021 we are going to face clear starvation, not just hunger because of lockdown and restriction of movement of people since farmers cannot move to their farms.

“Already, the rainy season has set in so, if the maize producers, soybeans farmers could not go to their farms that is a threat to the poultry industry.

“This is because 70 per cent of the raw materials for the poultry industry, especially poultry production is soya and maize. We have two issues, which are the lockdown, security, and activities of bandits.”

The president of PAN, however, urged the Federal Government to wake up to its responsibility to secure farmers by mobilising them to go to their farms and produce food for the country.

Ibrahim noted that lifting the restriction on the movement of farmers and mobilising them would forestall the foreseen starvation of the country in 2021.

“We need to wake up, the government needs to wake up to its duties because we are generally experiencing terrible and tough times,” he added.

KanyiDaily recalls that the Sultan of Sokoto, Sa’ad Abubakar had told the President Muhammadu Buhari-led government that hunger kill more Nigerians than the deadly Coronavirus.

The Monarch said: “There is a very serious virus that is killing people much higher than coronavirus. That virus is hunger; there is hunger virus and it’s very serious.”