The Director-General of Economic Community of West African States Food and Cultural Festival, Felix Ihonre, has urged President Bola Tinubu as ECOWAS Chairman of the Authority of Heads of State and Government to ensure three square meals a day for every ECOWAS citizen and family in the next five years.

Mr Ihonre made the call at the Post-Festival Stakeholders’ meeting in Abuja.

The EFCF, a body geared towards having a zero hunger tolerance within the ECOWAS countries held the food and cultural festival in Uyo, Akwa Ibom between October 6 and 11, 2024.

Mr Ihonre expressed optimism that Mr Tinubu as Chairman of ECOWAS has the capacity to champion the cause.

According to him, ECOWAS should put in place high level governments’ commitment to ensure that every citizen and family within ECOWAS countries can boast of three square meals a day.

He said, “On behalf of the ECOWAS Food and Cultural Festival, a body that is geared towards having a zero hunger tolerance within the member-states of the region, we are calling on President Bola Tinubu as the Chairman of ECOWAS to ensure three square meals a day for every ECOWAS citizen and family in the next five year.

“We know that the President has the capacity to champion this cause. That is why we are giving a probationary period of five years for us to achieve this goal of having at least three square meals a day for every ECOWAS citizen and family. We are not saying next year or next three years, we are saying every citizen and family in the next five years should be boasting of having three square meals in their homes within the ECOWAS sub-region. This will make every citizen happy, peaceful and play the role they are supposed to play within the region.”

The EFCF boss said that his organisation had initiated an Agropreneurship Legacy project aimed at having a secured food security region.

“The Agropreneurship Legacy project of ECOWAS Food and Cultural Festival, is like a hub. In one hub, you will have demonstration farms, in one hub, you will have processing factories, packaging industry as well youths and women being trained in how they manage their various farms at various locations. In one hub, there will be a lot of research activities on how to improve on our agricultural production and how we can secure that approach of having a secured food security region. And in one hub where many people can come together to be busy with one business that will make the West African community to grow higher than what they are in terms of import, export promotion activities within the region.

“This initiative also aims to supply food to our people and those foods that cannot be harnessed which are seasonal and being wasted, through the entrepreneurship project, these foods will be conserved for usage during dry season farming and for export for other countries where there are hunger and malnutrition.

“This, we hope, will take off in the next five years. That is why we are calling on our President and giving a probationary period of five years for us to achieve this goal of having at least three square meals a day for every ECOWAS citizen and family,” he said.

(NAN)