Farmers from the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory on Monday stormed the National Assembly to protest against the rejection of President Goodluck Jonathan’s cassava bill by the House of Representatives.
The bill had sought the inclusion of 10 per cent cassava in bread production in the country.
But the lawmakers opposed the bill when it was debated on Wednesday last week, eventually rejecting it.
They claimed to have rejected the bill on the ground that it could cause hunger in the country.
The lawmakers said it would aid major industrialists to buy off all the cassava produced in the country, thereby leaving the poor without food.
But the farmers under the aegis of Farmers Associations insisted that the rejection was against national interest.
The Agbekoya Farmers Association from Lagos State and the Nigerian Cassava Producers, Processors and Exporters were among the notable groups in the protest.
A spokesman for the protesters, Prof. Alfred Ihekoronye, said the bill would apart from boosting the finances of the farmers help the country out of its food crisis.
Ihekoronye, who is the Executive Director of Agro Development Technology Initiative, said, “During (former President Olusegun) Obasanjo’s time, I was the lead technical consultant agro-processing for the National Special Food Security and it was that time that the cassava processing was introduced.
“We travelled round the country teaching farmers how to bake bread using high quality cassava flour.”
Security was tightened at the gates of the National Assembly as the placard-carrying farmers made efforts to enter the premises.
Some of the inscriptions on their placards read, ‘Save our jobs’; ‘Don’t starve Nigerians who elected you’; ‘You ate cassava to grow up’; ‘Foreign food means foreign debt’; ‘Please don’t kill cassava’; ‘NAFDAC drug agency says yes to cassava; and ‘Who is patriotic, NAFDAC or House of Reps?’
However, no principal official of the National Assembly was around to attend to the protesters.
Many lawmakers were away on Monday, owing to the fact that it was not a sitting day.
Faced with what appeared to be a security threat, the National Assembly’s security officer, Mr. Dennis Mailalle, appealed to the protesters to be calm.
He advised them to return on Wednesday when the Assembly would have resumed sitting after the May 29th Democracy Day celebrations on Tuesday (today).
When his appeal did not yield the desired result, the security officer asked the farmers to nominate a delegation that would meet with some principal officers of the legislature.
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Lawmakers can never support policy that will help Nigerians except to negotiate bribes from innocent NEC and other fellow helpless Nigerians.
ReplyDeleteThey are not suppose to enjoy freedom.
I do not see how major industrialists would buy off all cassava thereby leaving the poor without food. it would instead increase cassava farming all over the country. Also families can locally produce bread instead of buying thereby saving some cost for the family. This would even bring civilization and attention to more of our rural areas.
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