Professor of Nutritional Biochemistry and Phytomedicine from Covenant University (CU), Israel Afolabi has recommended quality nutrition as one of the solutions to food insecurity.
Afolabi stated during his inaugural lecture that the provision of adequate food and nutrition could address insecurity both at national and international levels rather than the use of guns.
Speaking at the 31st Inaugural Lecture of Covenant University recently, the lecturer whose lecture dwelt on the theme, “Setting the Huddle for Glorification: The Cross-Coded Structural Pathways to Spring up Nutrients in Foods for Sustained Commonwealth”, is of the belief that the level of crime would be drastically reduced if the community was given adequate diet and nutrients, especially, at the childhood level.
He said, “I encourage the government to look towards providing adequate education for everyone in the community.
The benefit is that it turns radical people into manageable people. Food makes people happy. If you starve a child of food, especially at a young age, there is a high tendency that he will be violent when he grows up, because it has been proven that good nutrition leads to low crime.
“So, when we feed them well (with the right nutrition) at a young age, we will have healthy grown-up people. Their intelligence will be affected, which will in turn affect their conduct in society. So, rather than using the gun, use food and good nutrients.”
The don also called for a technological drive for national development noting that Nigeria was not doing well in that area.
“Nigerian government should encourage researchers with funds. They should pump money into notable inventions and scale them up to the industrial level. The government should give tax incentives to any industry that takes up our locally innovative technology and promotes it,” he enthused.
In his remarks, the vice chancellor of the university, Prof Abiodun Adebayo corroborated Afolabi noting that it was high time the government looked inward to make food available to everyone in Nigeria.
“As the saying goes, ‘A hungry man is an angry man’. The government must ensure that food is available because when you’re full, you are not thinking of any violence,” he noted.
The VC promised that the university would keep striving hard to ensure it promotes research efforts that would advance food security.
