User talk:Icenat

EVEN GOD IS A GOD OF SUBSIDY I recall that while I was in primary school in my little village, my teacher taught me that” balance diet is a kind of food that contains all the necessary classes of food in their right proportion”. I was taught that this is called adequate nutrition and lack of it could lead to malnutrition and could cause kwashiorkor which could affect the physical and mental development of a child. This no doubt can also expose someone to unhealthy conditions like stunted growth, mental retardation, poor vision, abnormalities in the teeth & bone and lots more. Now one may ask what happens when such children whose parents are of little means and could barely afford two square meals a day. Another may be quick to know the fate of such children whose regular menu on the table is carbohydrate in the morning and same at night. These are children who would gladly eat eba or (fufu) in the morning and earnestly believe God for same when night falls. But amazingly, rather being seen looking malnourished or having stunted growth, such children who are strangers and aliens to these essential food nutrients that are sinequanon for their proper growth and development more often than not turn out to look so nourished and well taken care of. Amazing indeed! Isn’t it? I am sure you have seen scores of such cases that are pointers to this fact. So many of the world’s best are products of this kind of humble background and they abound everywhere in the field of academics, sports, entertainment, science, technology and even in the things of God. Then what could be the reason? The reason is not far – fetched. It is that, there is a God that has interest in subsidy. Yes he is a God of subsidy who is ever willing to render some kind of assistance or support to make up or argument for the little that the poor have. So, if all the six classes of food namely; carbohydrate, protein, fats and oil, vitamin, mineral and water will each contribute 15% food nutrient to ensure balance diet is attained and there are people who can only manage to eat fufu in the morning, drink garri in the afternoon and eat fufu again in the night. Yet rather than looking haggard and malnourished, such people are well built up in stature and wonderfully intelligent with well developed mental ability, then someone somewhere is paying the price of subsidy. So permit me to say that if God could deem it necessary to come this close to our very homes and support the poor and the “have not’s”, those whose daily food in – take cannot take to the status of balanced diet, then this very government that we stood under the sun and in the rain to elect and trust with our mandate should do no less For our dear President Mohamadu Buhari and all those saddled with the responsibility of governing our dear country Nigeria, I feel that your interest and focus for now should not be on how to remove subsidy so that government can save some running cost giving the dwindly price of oil which is Nigerian major source of foreign exchange. Yes, there are scores of things that our government can do to save some money that can be plunged back into the system without any biting and scourging effect on the citizenry. For instance, the wardrobe allowance for members of the National Assembly which costs a whopping sum of 9billion naira can be trimmed down and much money saved. Again, the frequency at which our leaders travel overseas for all manner of holidays can be reduced and this will mean that their bogus and outrageous travelling allowances will also be cut down. That too can save us some money. Whereas I am not saying that subsidy cannot be removed someday sometime, my point is that in the face of the grinding poverty in our land today that is capable of invoking an on – looker to tears, subsidy should not be removed. Giving the high cost of goods and commodities in the market today especially food items, of a truth the common man stands to gain nothing if subsidy is removed now. Yes, the ordinary man on the street, the market women that manage to make ends meet, several salary earners whose take home pay could hardly take home before may perhaps faint on their way home if subsidy is finally removed. The reason is that the only thing that the rich and the poor alike benefit from today in our country is this subsidy. The moment it is removed, the prices of goods and services will go high, transportation fare will be doubled, cost of services will rise and poverty line will increase with the poor getting poorer with its attendant effects in hunger, penury, misery, sickness and even death. Are these things with us now? If they are, then of what significance is subsidy removal? Again, I would like to ask, why can’t our leaders wait until such a time when most of the problems bedeviling the country are fixed? Oh yes! Why not left until the time our power sector would be fixed once and for all and this critical sector made to live up to its expectation. There is no doubt that when this is done, hope will rise again for the great people of this country who have “long sat in the region and shadow of darkness” as several jobless youths that are now roaming our streets will find bearing and rest for their souls. Mention must also be made of our transportation sector. Here too, government needs to put a lot in place before subsidy can be removed. Our rail system must come alive again and this time even better. Our deplorable road network needs to wear a new look and more importantly there is need for efficient and effective mass transit scheme that is government assisted. This no doubt will help reduce the cost of goods and services and stabilize transportation fare. I make bold to say that until these and even more are done, our government may be said to be in a hurry to remove subsidy, seeing that we are not yet ripe for that kind of change. After all, even God Himself is a God of subsidy. This article was written by Ikechukwu Ede

Icenat (talk) 16:35, 19 July 2016 (UTC)