By Ishaya Ibrahim
Governor of Niger State, Mohammed Umar Bago, has backed the presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 election, Peter Obi, saying it is a disgrace for war-torn Ukraine to be giving food aid to Nigeria.
The government of Ukraine last week donated 25,000 tons of wheat to Nigeria to support 1.3 million citizens in the brink of starvation.
Obi, in reaction to the report, said it is a disgrace for the Eastern European country which is fighting a war of survival with Russia to be providing food aid to Nigeria that is officially at peace.
But minister of Information, Mohammed Idris, argued that the donation from Ukraine does not make Nigeria an unproductive state.
But Bago, speaking after receiving Leadership Newspaper award as Obi on Tuesday, said the former Anambra governor was right in saying ‘it is a disgrace for Nigeria to be reliant on food aid from war-torn Ukraine.’
He said: “We have cleared deliberately over a million hectares of land. So, my boss, you are very right to whjat you have said. We have no reason to be poor.
“People may not like you (referring to Obi), but they must hear you, because what you said is the gospel truth. Nigeria needs to be productive. You cannot be out of poverty unless you start to produce.
“I am not an advocate of handout and palliative too. I don’t believe in it.
“It is high time we told ourselves the basic truth. We need to feed ourselves. And it’s a shame for people like Ukraine who are in war to be giving us food.
“I assure you in this room today, Leadership Group, the next award you will give me, if you will ever give me, is the largest producer of food in 2024.
‘Federal government is doling out 42,000 metric tons of grains. By June, only Niger state will give 100,000 metric tons of grains.”