FOOD SECURITY IS THE PANACEA TO ECONOMIC EMANCIPATION/POVERTY ALLEVIATION!

ZION B-BC   NEWSLETTER.  

(Looking at Nigeria's Political System From a Godly Perspective).

A Publication of the Zion Faith Bible-Believing Church Kpeyegyi Abuja Nigeria {Vol. 8.NO 314. 14th August, 2019.} “…ONLY The Truth, Will Set You   Free! (John.8:32). . PRAY & FAST EVERY WEDNESDAY TO STOP BLOODSHED IN NIGERIA!

FOOD SECURITY IS THE PANACEA TO ECONOMIC EMANCIPATION/POVERTY ALLEVIATION!

There was a time in the life of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, when prodigality occupied the centre stage and the common patrimony was converted to private possessions of some selfish few shortly after the "Biafra War" and the era of Oil Boom debuted! The hard currency flowed seamlessly into the coffers of successive military governments from the 70's into the 90's when they reluctantly handed over to the civilians in an arrangement which looked more of a Diarchy, because all the corrupt military generals could not take their hands off the TILL, and treasury-looting became the first sets of accredited government contractors through subtle intimidations of the new administration of 1999, headed by retired General Aremu Obasanjo, who perpetrated an import-driven economy!

They were all into the Oil and Gas, Export/Import of foreign merchandise, exotic foods, vintage wines, alcohols, tomato paste,  stock fish, canned fish, beverages, milk, rice, palm oil, vegetable oil fabrics, electronics, automobiles, motor bikes, electric cables, household utensils/furniture’s, even tooth picks, etc  all, to tightly keep the economy in their leach! And in all of those neo-colonialists manifestations, the downtrodden masses suffered deprivation of virtually all social amenities of electricity power, potable water, sanitation/drainage systems, motorable roads, adequate shelters, job opportunities, protection of life and property, etc!

During those periods of sufferings and deprivations one prominent civilian Commissioner in the North in the early 70's LATE ALHAJI UMARU DIKKO, philosophically SAID THAT THE TREND COULD STILL DEGENERATE TO CITIZENS PICKING GARBAGE’S FROM THE DUST BINS FOR SURVIVAL and quickly escaped to London the military could arrest him!!
HOW time changes! In the midst of those commotions, there was a divine intervention through one General who was preserved to change the unpalatable story line in the person of the incumbent second-term democratically elected President Muhammadu Buhari, who vehemently refused and resisted the successive and abusive prodigality of past administrations to entrench true federalism by returning the common wealth to the citizens through the very transparent, Treasury Single Account (TSA), which enshrines accountability as demanded by the Constitution and total war against corruption, violent crimes/criminalities, insurgency/terrorism, which were off-shoots of past maladministration’s!

From the inception of the first term, in 2015, aggressive diversification from the mono-foreign-exchange -earner product of crude oil to Agriculture engage the attention of the Change APC Administration under the watch of President Buhari, who ensured that all foreign goods that were detrimental and inimical to economic growth, were outrightly banned to give way for local manufacturers/industrialists, livestock and poultry farmers to thrive!

Therefore when self-appointed foreign economic growth global monitors of independent Republics announced in 2018 - that Nigeria was the "poverty capital" nation of the universe and detractors at home and the Diaspora chorused the rating to spite the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), government as if that verdict were the gospel truth, We debunked the unsolicited, unholy, abusive and detrimental ranting of the meddlesome interlopers as very incorrect, offensive and untruthful in our Vol. 7. No. 258 publication of 22nd July 2018.
CONSIDERING THE FACT THAT THE NIGERIA CAME OUT OF RECESSION EARLY IN THE YEAR 2018, WE BELIEVE THAT THOSE NIGERIANS WHO ORCHESTRATED THE POVERTY ANALYSIS BY UN (CCA), AND THE PROGRESSION CHART USED BY WORLD POVERTY CLOCK (WPC), TO DISCREDIT NIGERIA WERE VERY UNPATRIOTIC!

NIGERIA HAS ACHIEVED FOOD SECURITY!
On Tuesday13th August, 2019, the Executive President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, declared to the world that Nigeria had achieved food security and advised the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), to stop approval of foreign exchange (forex), allocations for food importation! His exact words: "Don't give a cent to anybody to import food into the country," but he later told critics that the forex ban was to improve agricultural production and attain full food security!
Prominent on the welfare policy of the ruling government is the aggressive diversification from crude oil, the only forex earner to agriculture, which attracted less investments, provided massive employment opportunities and produced credible, glaring and unhidden results for local/global testimonies!

In less than  two years of its first term, the APC Government in collaboration with willing States, lifted farmers fortunes beyond measures and no fewer than 16 millionaires emerged from Kebbi, Kano,  Jigawa, Ebonyi and Lagos States! Food Security is the AVAILABILITY AND ACCESS to food by all people - and according to the World Food Summit of 1996, such situation only existed when all people have that opportunity "to access at all times to sufficient,  safe,  nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life." We believe that food security or sufficiency for any nation tantamount to agrarian economic growth and by implication, a veritable avenue to poverty alleviation, which is a trending situation of the new Nigeria of our collective dreams!

THOSE WHO CHORUSED POVERTY ARE ALSO AGAINST FOOD SECURITY!
They said that the President had no right to stop forex on food importation in spite of the noticeable depletion of the nation's foreign exchange reserves!
That the Executive could only deal with fiscal policy alone and not monetary, a prerogative of the banking agency which was autonomous and independent of government's manipulation, according to the CBN Act 2007, that established it and accountable only to the National Assembly (NASS).
That the Executive President was restricted to only three areas in the administration of the apex bank, namely: approvals of (a) Annual declarations; (b) Currency designs; and External investments, which were in tandem with global best practices and principles.
They also argued that if such forex had to be stopped, it should be gradual because importers would sought for forex from other sources since importation of food was only banned from official forex allocation, and would therefore create inflation - especially after Nigeria became a signatory to the African Continental Free Trade Agreement in July 2019, which encourages tariff wavers!
IT is pertinent to digest the President's directives from the proper perspectives: first government’s concern was predicated on encouraging more investors to venture into farming while discouraging external competitions, opening opportunities for regular exportation of surpluses to needy nations  to speedily increase the depleting foreign reserves! FREE TRADE DOES NOT MEAN FORCED TRADE!
ALTHOUGH, all staple food items such as: rice, beans, millets, garri, soya beans, fish, milk, palm oil, etc, that are locally produced, have been totally banned from importation so that the local farmers could thrive, rich people could still import exotic foods and pay high tariffs to whet their luxurious/expensive tastes which they could easily afford and it should no longer be the concern of government to fund their vanities and frivolities! 

For the records, the concern of the APC administration from the onset to erase poverty in all forms, through adequate provision of strategic social intervention programmes is very much on track and had yielded positive economic results! But detractors want the President to fold his arms because of some administrative clauses of CBN's independence which have no structure in the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria!
PRESIDENT BUHARI HAS SUCCESSFULLY WORKED WITH THE CURRENT CBN's GOVERNOR, GODWIN EMEFUELE, APPOINTED BY PEOPLES DEMOCRATIC PARTY'S (PDP), EX-PRESIDENT, EBELE JONATHAN, IN 2014, AND HAS ALSO RE-APPOINT HIM FOR A SECOND FIVE-YEAR-TERM!
Will this same Emefuele - whom PDP's candidate in the 2019 Presidential Elections, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, boasted that he would sack immediately he was elected - begin to quote CBN's Act 2007, which encourages social intervention strategies and disobey the Presidential directive?

MORE INVESTMENTS NEEDED TO BOOST NIGERIA'S ECONOMIC GROWTH!
Was it not high time for Nigerian investors to divert more attention to the agriculture, mineral exploration, tourism, entertainment, the film industry, and the Art sectors; etc, to boost all economic derivables, encourage Nigerian-made products manufactured within Nigerian borders for export, acquire more forex and attain the much-sought-after-position among the 20-most-economically-viable nations of the world by the year 2020?
CHINA AND NOT AMERICA, SHOULD BY NOW BE NIGERIA'S ROLE MODEL IN RESPECT OF DETERMINED NATIONAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT THAT IS MASSES-ORIENTED AND PEOPLE-FRIENDLY BECAUSE FOOD INSUFFICIENCY WOULD NEGATE BOTH PHYSICAL AND ECONOMIC GROWTHS AND SUBSEQUENTLY BIRTH POVERTY AND CRIME - AN HUNGRY MAN IS SAID TO BE AN ANGRY MAN!

IF some Nigerians had sufficient food to eat in 2010, when the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), was at its peak of corruption with impunity - A DEAD AND ROTTEN WHALE, WASHED ASHORE ON THE LAGOS BAR BEACH - would not have been aggressively attacked and bombarded with axes, cutlasses, machetes, jack knives, swords etc, by hungry people who had a field day in spite of warnings by the medics of consequences of health hazards!
FOOD SECURITY WOULD DEFINITELY ELIMINATE NOT ONLY POVERTY BUT ALSO UNEMPLOYMENT CHALLENGES IN ALL STATES OF THE FEDERATION!                                  

Please look forward to more divine revelation in the next edition of Zion B-BC Newsletter as you share this with friends and remain blessed in the Lord. [For weekly access, to this newsletter, log on to:  facebook.com/zionfaithbible.believingchurch or http://www.zfbbc1.blogspot.com, https://www.google.com/+zionfaithbiblebelievingchurch.

If you have not accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Saviour, don’t miss this great opportunity as you pray this prayer: Lord Jesus; I confess that I am a sinner who needs to be saved through the grace of the New Testament of your Blood, shed on the Cross at Calvary; I renounce every sin in my life and accept you as my Lord and Saviour. Please forgive me and write my name in the Book of Life. Amen. If you prayed this prayer, you have been admitted into the family of sons and daughters of God, who are born-again. Congratulations.

I am, yours sincerely, Dr. David B.A. Olufon, Resident Pastor and Editor. 08130669886, 08098194390.  08080243066. G-mail- dvdolufon@gmail.com.