WRITTEN BY GBOLAGADE AYOOLA
It is a thing of joy that currently, a national food security and right to food campaign is going on across the country.

The Campaign is anchored on the collective belief that the sluggish pace of human and economic development as well as the present state of insecurity of life in Nigeria has its taproots in the protracted suffering of the citizens from hunger and malnutrition.
The latest World Hunger Index indicates that as at 2017, Nigeria ranked 84th among 119 countries in the category of “Serious Hunger Prevalence”. This implies that about seventy-five per cent of our population presently suffers from acute adult malnutrition, child stunting and child mortality, due to food insecurity. Understandably, the remaining twenty-five percent of the population that are not hungry are not even safe in the hands of the hungry Nigerians
Thus, the country is faced with high unemployment, crime, poverty, inflation etcetera.  It is commonplace to observe children and youth in their productive stages in life begging for food on the streets. No doubt, human development cannot take place in such a situation let alone economic and social development. The situation requires drastic policy changes to reverse the trend and to put the country’s human and economic development pathway on a sure footing.
In this regard, it is believed that the nature of the problem pertains to the lack of a definite philosophical direction for the food security policies and programmes of government to endure long enough for the human and economic development of the country to stabilize over time. Absence of a policy philosophy is linked to the absence of political philosophy, both of which are real in the Nigerian situation.
Hence, the contemporary notion of food as a human right contrasts from the traditional notion of food as a human need; the difference between the two notions being that: while the traditional notion of food as a human need does not place any burden of public inquisition on the Government of the day when its policies fail to ensure food security of the people, the contemporary notion of food as a human right puts such a burden on Government. The burden is derived from the ability of the people to take government to task and to ask questions at such times of policy failure, thereby putting Government on its toes and helping it to prioritize food security on top of the political and policy agenda.
Therefore, the goal of the current national campaign is to bring about food justice as a norm in Nigeria, whereby every citizen is assured an irreducible minimum degree of freedom from hunger for him or her to live a healthy, dignified and productive life. This campaign involves mind change on the part of the citizens, and policy change on the part of Government, about the notion of food.
Towards this end, a Bill has been introduced at the National Assembly for the purpose as far back as 2010 during the Sixth Assembly. The Bill seeks to amend the constitution for the recognition of food security as a right issue and to insert a clause to that effect in Chapter 4 (Fundamental Human Rights), thereby making it justifiable. The Bill passed the First Reading Stage during the Sixth and Seventh Assembly, but is presently before the Constitutional Review Committee of the Senate and the House of Representatives, during the present Eighth Assembly, having passed the First and Second Readings in both chambers as at June 2016.
Unfortunately, the import of the right to food approach to policymaking is sometimes misconstrued or misunderstood. The right to food, as crafted in the Bill, is not to be exercised by asking government to provide food for the citizens, free of charge. No, rather, generating a greater demand for food in the market, thereby stimulating farmers to produce more and more food.
In a regime of right to food, the people are the right holders, implying that the people, except the vulnerable members of society and others in protracted suffering, have the responsibility to work in order to earn their individual and collective right to food.  On the other hand, in a regime of food as a human right, the Government is the duty holder, whereby it is the responsibility of Government to implement policies for ensuring food security as a sacred duty, not as a favour or charity as is presently the case.
At this stage, the good citizens of Nigeria in their different capacities are called upon to lend their full support to the National Campaign on Right to Food in Nigeria, by  endorsing it generally and mandating their lawmakers at national and state levels to support the passage of the Right to Food Bill pending at the National Assembly; and thereafter putting a political price on food security of the people by voting for only candidates who give an undertaking that they would support the smooth implementation of the Right to Food Bill, in 2019.

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