 In the meantime, the federal government has convened a meeting to address the spate of protests in some parts of the country following the rising cost of food nationwide. The meeting held Tuesday evening at State House, Abuja, was chaired by chief of staff to the president, Fermi Bajabi Amila. It came on the heels of protests in Mina and over the rising cost of living in the country. President Bola Tinibu, who returned to Abuja on Tuesday night after a two-week private visit to France, had directed a special presidential committee to take immediate steps to arrest the worsening food situation. Briefing newsmen after the over three hours meeting, minister of information and national orientation Mohammed Idris expressed Tinibu's concerns about the worsening food crisis in the country. The president has directed that government needs to step in, to stem this tide. Government will not fold its arms and see the way Nigerians are suffering in terms of the availability of these food items. Now, some of these will involve unlocking the food, the food that are available in most of the storage facilities around the country. You know that the Prime Minister of Agriculture has some food reserve. That is going to be made available to Nigerians. Government is also talking to major mealers and major commodity traders to also see what is available in their stores to open it up so that government will provide some intervention, discuss with them and provide some intervention to make this food available to Nigerians. What government is noticing is that actually there is still food in this country. Some people are taking advantage of the situation, especially because of the high cost. The rise in all the depreciation in the value of our currency. That has led to the cost of these food items also going off. Get notified about fresh news updates.