The Bishop on the Niger, Church of Nigeria, (Anglican Communion,) Rt. Rev. Dr Owen Nwokolo, has expressed displeasure over the high level of hunger, starvation, challenging the Federal Government to reverse the development with despatch.
According to the Prelate, today’s prices of essential food items have astronomically risen beyond the reach of average Nigerian. Unfortunately, hunger and starvation now challenge every household in the country resulting in the regrettable high rate of deseaes and death of fellow Nigerians.
Handing out the challenge in the Presidential Address he delivered on Friday during Third Session of 32nd Synod of the Diocese, holding at St Christopher’s Anglican Church, Odakpu, the Bishop expressed worries over what he said the harsh economic situation had caused Nigerians.
In the 110-page address, Rt.Rev. Nwokolo explained that the economic fortunes of the country worsened since the withdrawal of subsidy on petroleum.
“Following the withdrawal of subsidy on petroleum mmediately on assumption of office, the Federal Government unwittingly threw every one living in Nigeria into unprecedented excruciating economic hardship”, he added.
Bishop Nwokolo therefore asked the National Assembly and the President to quickly arrest the situation now to avoid picking dead and fainted Nigerians on our streets and roads as a result of hunger and diseaes”.
He also expressed great worries over the lingering and apparently interactable insecurity situation in the country, saying that except the government or some highly placed Nigerians were profiting from the situation, the phenomenon would long have been a foregone issue.
“This Synod is worried. Most right-thinking Nigerins are worried. It is very annoying, it is very unfathomable, in fact, very hard to imagine why in a country like Nigeria which is said to be ordered by the rule of law, some lawless individuals and groups remain on rampage, terrorising innocent Nigerians in various parts of the country at the watch of the security agencies, it is difficult to understand”, Bishop Nwokolo lamented.
The Bishop remarked that the incessant massacre of citizens in their own communities had unfortunately continued unabated without any positive actions from the federal government other than voicing mere verbal condemnations.
“This artificially contrived insecurity now pervading the vast areas of the nation’s food producing communities, causing food shortage, must, at all cost, be sincerely fought by the government”, the bishop further stated.
He consequently challenged the National Assembly and the President to save Nigerians the embarrassment of any further stories of insecurity through effective use of the nation’s sophisticated military intelligence and modern weapons to end the trend.
