Rep. Chike Okafor in this exclusive interview with OrderPaper, explains legislative efforts to address the food crisis in Nigeria
In the 2023 Global Hunger Index, Nigeria ranked 109th out of 125 countries. With a score of 28.3, Nigeria has a level of hunger that is declared ‘serious’. The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) revealed that the national average cost of a healthy diet was N1,241 in June 2024. This is 19.2% higher than the amount recorded in the previous month (which was N1,041). As a parliamentary monitoring organisation that bridges the gap between citizens and the parliament, OrderPaper Nigeria engaged Rep. Chike John Okafor (APC Imo), chairman, house committee on nutrition and food security, about legislative efforts to address the food crisis in Nigeria.
The committee, inaugurated on February 28, 2024, was created under the leadership of Speaker Rep. Tajudeen Abbas, who Rep. Okafor credited for the innovation. “This is a brand new committee that did not exist in the 8th and 9th assemblies,” he explained, adding: “It is the ingenuity of this speaker to have carved out this committee from the existing committees on agriculture and health to address issues of malnutrition and lack of food.”
He provided insights into the newly formed committee, including objectives, recent events, and the challenges facing Nigeria’s agriculture and food security sectors. See EXCERPTS below:
Q: Can you tell us about your recent food summit?
A: What we had was a follow-up to several events since the right honourable speaker, Dr. Tajudeen Abbas, named this committee and appointed me as the chairman. We had our formal inauguration on the 28th of February, 2024. This is a new committee, created by the speaker’s ingenuity, to address issues of malnutrition and food insecurity, carving it out from the existing committees of agriculture and health. Since then, we have had a retreat, engaging the members of the committee with the relevant stakeholders, like the ministries of agriculture, budget and planning, health, the Primary Health Care Development Agency, and development partners- quite a number of development partners that have one thing or the other to do with nutrition and food, like UNICEF, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Food Programme, the CSO, the World Bank. They all came around the retreat. So, the whole idea was to bring the committee members up to speed and up to date to the challenges of malnutrition and lack of food. But one thing we also thought to do was to invite the speakers of the 36 state houses of assembly. The reason is very simple. You can’t be talking about how to improve on the supply of food and how to deal with the issues of malnutrition and then you centre it only in Abuja here. There’s a need to cascade it down to the 36 states and possibly to 776 local government areas because that’s where you see the challenges of hunger majorly. I insist that here in Abuja, where we are, 80% of anyone in Abuja can afford to eat what he or she wants to eat and when he or she wants to eat it.
The food summit was part of an understanding reached in Oweri during our retreat, aiming to establish similar committees in all 36 states’ houses of assembly. We’ve formed the Nigeria Legislative Network on Nutrition and Food Security, a collaboration between the House of Reps committee and the states’ House of Assembly committees. So, we pulled facilitators from across different strata of our economy who had to come to talk about issues of hunger, starvation, and not eating the right nutritious food. How do we come in as a legislature to put in place a legislative framework to help the executive and our government to ensure that only programmes and policies that will help us in improving on our food supply, and also making sure that the food that we produce and supply to our people are nutritious food. So, that’s basically what we have done in the last two days
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Q: What has happened to the school feeding programme of the federal government? Has your committee looked into it?
A: The home-grown school feeding programme is within the jurisdiction of our committee. The current administration didn’t scrap it; they suspended it due to issues within the ministry of humanitarian affairs, which is responsible for implementing it. Investigations are ongoing, and the president recently directed that the programme be resuscitated, with funds provided for it. I’m sure in the coming weeks and months, the programme will kick-start again. I read in the papers, I’m also watching the news, that the president had directed that they should resuscitate that programme. And then some money has also been provided for it. Because it’s actually a laudable programme that, like you said, is helping to bridge the issues of hunger and malnutrition especially among children of agees 5 to 11, 12, who are within the primary school stage. So at least provide them with a nutritious meal, one square meal a day.
Q: Considering the issues of abuse and fraud in the home-grown school feeding programme, why hasn’t the national assembly, especially your committee, taken more significant action?
A: It’s important to understand the distinct roles of the legislature and the executive. The national assembly is not the employer of ministers; the president is. The president, upon discovering irregularities, suspended the minister and ordered an investigation. The legislature ought not to come in and begin to interfere where the president in his wisdom had seen reason to direct for some proper investigation, which is ongoing. And then the minister is suspended. Now, I say that to say that we must, it’s high time that we stay on our lane. Let me use a Nigerian word, ‘stay on your lane, I stay on my lane.’ The issues that called for the suspension of the minister was not generated from the national assembly. They were internally generated within the executive and then the president, you know, is dealing with it. However, two weeks ago, there was a motion on the floor calling for the investigation of the school feeding programme, and our committee was included in that investigation. So, the legislature is involved, but it’s crucial to respect the separation of powers.
Q: Are there actions in place to address issues of insecurity, funding for people in the agricultural sector, and ensuring food availability?
Last month, I presented a motion addressing the worsening food scarcity in Nigeria, the rising malnutrition and the urgent need to investigate the alleged mismanagement of various government agricultural interventions and funding by departments, agencies, schemes and programmes of the government, outside of the ministry of agriculture and food security. We tried to know the worsening food scarcity and rising acute malnutrition in Nigeria, like I said, and then we did mention quite a number of federal government schemes and programmes and interventions within the last eight years, running into over two trillion naira in funding various agricultural interventions with the view of making food available to, for the farmers, for Nigerians. But unfortunately, there are allegations of mismanagement, misapplication of funds, you know, mismanagement and misapplication, these are two different things, mismanagement, misapplication of funds, and abuse of the programme. So, we are faced with that because today, we are still in an agonizing situation where there is food scarcity, rising malnutrition, despite the quantum of money pushed, so-called pushed into the agricultural sector. What was the whole idea? Is to boost food production, is it not? So, despite all that quantum of money pushed, we are still where we are, crying ‘water, water, water, no water to drink.’ So, what we did in that motion was to pull out quite a number of government interventions, from the Central Bank of Nigeria Anchor Borrowers Programme (which) disbursed over 1.2 trillion naira. We looked at the fact that NISAL, the Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending – disbursed over 215 billion naira, and then Bank of Industries also disbursed over 3 billion naira. And then, of course, in 2023, the federal government of Nigeria unveiled a 5 billion loan facility to Bank of Agriculture for livestock farmers across the country. And then, National Agricultural Development Fund, in March of 2024, inaugurated a 1.6 billion recovery fund for ginger. So, despite all these interventions, we are still where we are. So, we are worried that this avoidable situation of hunger in the land today, which with the rising and increased malnutrition and obvious scarcity of food, makes it imperative for an investigation to be called, an investigation to be conducted in these various government interventions and funding. The motion was unanimously passed, and we plan to conduct a thorough investigation into these issues once we return from recess. Insecurity is indeed a significant factor affecting food production, and while it’s not within my committee’s scope, we have committees dealing with national security, for instance, committees dealing with police issues, army, and the rest of it. So, they are handling it. But I agree with you and I want to place it on record that one of the major challenges that has brought us to where we are is the fact that the farmers are no longer safe. It’s something that the government must urgently address to ensure the safety of farmers across the country.
STAR Check: Nigerians, particularly, constituents of Ehime Mbano/Ihitte Uboma, Obowo Federal Constituency, can keep tabs on the legislative performance of Rep. Okafor throughout the 10th House here
