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Where is Yar’Adua’s N5, 000 rice?

A hungry man is an angry man, so goes a popular saying. Little wonder that the issue of food shortage always elicits serious concern from the public.
It is not an overstatement to pronounce Nigeria a hungry nation. A situation where more than 50 per cent of the populace are not sure of what they will have for the next meal cannot be considered to be a good one.
Therefore, when the issue of food shortage manifested a few moths ago, a broad spectrum of the society participated in the discussion to proffer solution to the crisis. A serious government is expected to sieve through the heaps of available ones in order to come up with a functional and viable solution.
The point must be made that this government does not have a sound agricultural policy in place. I don’t even know whether agriculture is part of the seven-point agenda of the government. And I don’t deserve any blame for that.
I am very sure that most of the serving ministers and presidential aides cannot boast of listing the items on the seven-point agenda without having to go and look it up somewhere. The seven-point agenda is just media hype and nothing more. I stand to be proved wrong.
There is nothing wrong with having a short-term solution to a problem. But everything is wrong when the short-term solution cannot meet its target, because by extension, any long-term solution designed on the same platform is bound to fail too.
A Ghanaian adage says, "He that does not know where he is coming from is unlikely to know where he is going to." This happens to be the lot of the present regime. We are at the crossroads and the current government does not seem to know where we are coming from and where we ought to be going to.
When the issue of global food crisis reared its ugly face some months ago, the Nigerian government responded quickly by promising to import rice to cushion the effect of the envisaged food shortage. Not quite long after the promise, we were told that the first consignment of the imported rice had arrived the shores of our land. And the government again promised that a bag of rice was going to sell for N5, 000 as against the N7, 000 the commodity was being sold then. In the absence of this arrangement, we were told that the price of rice would have gone up to N13, 000 per bag or even more if the interim arrangement had not been made.
Unfortunately, several months after the arrival of the consignment and probably other ones we are yet to see Yar’Adua’s N5, 000 rice..Mohammed Ali Jnr,
Plot 225, Golf Course Close,
Ungwar Rimi,
Kaduna.

God, Samuel Peter and Akpabio

The euphoria that trailed the emergence of Samuel Peter as a world heavyweight boxing champion was too swift as it lasted. Peter secured his first reign by default when the holder of the title feigned unfitness for the fight. Then Peter went on to fight his first real fight which he narrowly won. We all rejoiced.
 While dedicating the belt, I believe that Peter made a fundamental mistake when it was dedicated to Governor Akpabio, instead of to God Almighty who made it possible for him. He mistook Akpabio for God.
Now in far away Berlin, though I am not happy about it, Peter was beaten to stupor by Vital Klitschko who had more vitality. We all saw how our "highly rated" Peter was beaten as if he was a baby-boxer and thank God he was quick to concede victory to avoid more punishment that could have led to death; he wants to live to fight again. Klitschko brothers now control all the world heavyweight boxing belts.
Coincidentally, Akpabio was not able to be in Germany to give support to Peter who was fighting in Germany because a German who works with a German company, Julius Berger, was kidnapped in broad daylight a few days to the bout along Abak Uyo Road.
 On the Channels TV, a sports reviewer recently commented that Governor Akpabio had urged Nigerians to pray (to God?) for Samuel Peter so that he regains his shape and belt. When Peter announced the dedication of the belt to Akpabio, the governor did not correct him by insisting that it should be to God. The governor was carried away and used it politically in the press when he said that for Peter dedicating the belt to him meant that he (governor) had been governing very well, if one should borrow from Dr. Jerry Gana. To many, his comment was as contemptuous as it was childish.
  .Garba Salem, Shehu Yar’Adua Way, Kado District, Abuja.