By Ogochukwu Isioma
An organisation, Nigerian Citizens Welfare Project (NCWP), has enjoined the government to urgently reenact the era of essential commodity distribution to the people.
It said this should be done now while the federal and state governments are looking at other options to curtail the hardship brought about by premium spirit (petrol) subsidy removal.
Engineer Esanerovo Agbodo, the group’s Director-General and former House of Representatives candidate, Isoko Federal Constituency, Delta State in the 2023 Nigerian election, made the suggestion in a statement issued at the weekend.
The group stated: “NIN should be used to identify real Nigerian families selected randomly across the country and subsidized bags of rice and beans sent to them every month to drive down the prices of food in the general market in the next two years while the government continues in solidifying its farming support programmes for farmers nationwide to guarantee food security.
“Also, transportation cards or vouchers should be printed and distributed nationwide to partner with NURTW and other willing Nigerians to drive down transportation costs especially for farm produce, educational materials, students and other essential services.
Also the government should gradually flood the system with interstate and intrastate buses to reduce transport fares.
Since it will take time and huge resources to satisfy the current transportation gap created, existing vehicles should come to the rescue before locally manufactured and imported ones will arrive.
“We need to urgently do this to stabilize the system and save the current situation in Nigeria from getting worse.
” Just increasing minimum wages for civil servants without addressing the issues raised above may worsen the current situation in Nigeria with more inflation and hardship for citizens.”
NCWP stressed: “This is our little contribution to national growth and we earnestly wish that the governments at the center and in the states look into these suggestions and maybe finetune them.
We are ready to partner with the government to implement details but it is not compulsory that the government must partner with us.”
The group implored educated Nigerians to spread this information until it gets to the President, governors and other key stakeholders.
It added:” We are here to support good governance and better citizenship free of charge as a patriotic act to our dear nation. Nigerians should join this Project’s interactive online forums for more impact. “
