Coronavirus: History will not be kind to us if Nigerians go hungry - Tinubu tells FG

Former governor of Lagos state, Bola Tinubu has appealed to the federal government to protect Nigerians from hunger and other disease while fighting the Coronavirus pandemic. 

The APC Chieftain stated that history will not be kind to the federal government if Nigerians go hungry amid the Coronavirus pandemic. 

In a statement released on Wednesday April 15, Tinubu averred that social intervention programmes will only cater for small scale traders and leave out the average salary earners who lost their jobs because of the lockdown order. 

The former Governor also called for the expansion of the school feeding programme and push for debt relief. 

Tinubu said; 

“We dare not underestimate the twin dangers posed by the virus itself and the economic consequences of the public health response.  Our goal must be that the people live neither with disease nor in hunger. This situation presents a historic chance to establish a more beneficial social contract between the government and the governed. 

“If we so utilize this moment, it will be recorded as a pivotal one in our national history. If we allow this moment to slip, history will not be obliged to treat us with great mercy.

“The worst of this dark potential can be avoided if the government is prepared to act in ways that not only feed people but protect the basic contours of our private-sector economy so that it can more quickly revive once normal conditions return. 

The APC chieftain recommended;

• Suspension/amendment of the 5% deficit limit of the fiscal responsibility law which prohibits fiscal deficit from exceeding 5% of the nation’s gross domestic product. “The best step would be to suspend the 5% budgetary limit for this fiscal year. Alternatively, the limit should be raised to 25-30% to allow the federal government more room to make the minimum expenditures necessary to save the economy and the people,” he wrote.
• Emergency sustenance payments: This, he said, could be paid to households for monthly needs or as emergency unemployment insurance to people who can prove they have been laid off due to the crisis or as payroll support to businesses to help them maintain staff so they can return to full operation when normalcy returns.
• Re-establishment of agricultural market and commodity boards for strategically important crops to stabilise farmers’ income and consumer prices.
• Import suppression through luxury taxes, higher tariffs and higher import processing fees due to the partial closure of ports of entry due to the coronavirus.
• Conditional interest-free loans from the Central Bank of Nigeria to large businesses. Tinubu said some of the conditions could be maintaining their workforce and even hiring an extra 10% for two or three months at reduced wages. “These additional workers should be youth hired under a temporary internship or training program.”