Eidl Kabir: President Buhari congratulates Muslims, blames price hike on insecurity

By Yusuf Adua

The President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, President Muhammadu Buhari has felicitated with Muslims on the occasion of Eid El-Adha festival, with the view that insecurity and flood caused the increase in rams, cows, and other food prices in the country.

In his congratulatory message, the President reaffirmed the commitment of his administration towards creating a just, harmonious, and prosperous country in which the safety of life and property will be guaranteed.

This was contained in a press statement titled, ‘Eid-el-Kabir: President Buhari extols the sacrifices of Nigerians, urges patience as government addresses hardships’.

Reflecting on current challenges facing the country, the President stated that the COVID-19 pandemic has taken a heavy toll on the economies of all countries, including Nigeria, in addition to the fact that floods have caused large scale destruction to agricultural farmlands, thereby impacting negatively on his efforts towards boosting local production in line with their policy to drastically reduce food importation.

He said this has led to food inflation which his government was working relentlessly to address.

The statement read in parts “No government in our recent history has invested as heavily as we are doing to promote local production of about 20 other commodities, through the provision of loans and several other forms of support to our farmers”.

“Apart from the destruction caused to rice farms by floods, middlemen have also taken advantage of the local rice production to exploit fellow Nigerians, thereby undermining our goal of supporting local food production at affordable prices”.

Mr. President felt that his mandate as an elected president who enjoys the goodwill of the ordinary people that voted him in cut across bringing relief to Nigerians, including making fertilizer available at affordable prices to farmers which he had been working hard to.

He also noted that the current insecurity in the country “has produced severe and adverse effects on agriculture because farmers are prevented from accessing their farms by bandits and terrorists.

“Let me also use this opportunity to reassure Nigerians that we are taking measures to address our security challenges. We have started taking delivery of fighter aircraft and other necessary military equipment and hardware to improve the capacity of our security forces to confront terrorism and banditry.”

On Eidl Kabir and its significance, the President urged Muslims “to demonstrate the good virtues of Islam through personal examples and practices:

“Taking advantage of the celebration to exploit fellow citizens through outrageous prices of food and rams is inconsistent with fine virtues of Islam”, he lamented.

“As practising believers, we shouldn’t seek obscene profits by making life difficult and miserable for others. We should not seek happiness at the expense of others. Remember that Islam is a religion of charity that urges us to love our neighbour as we love ourselves”.

The president also enjoined every Muslim to continue to live in peace and harmony with their fellow Nigerians of other faiths in the spirit of peaceful coexistence and charged them to pray heartily for the progress of Nigeria at all times.