A philanthropist, Dr. Gregory Azomobor has called on the Federal Government to as a matter of urgency declare a state of emergency on hunger and poverty in the country.

Dr Azomobor stated this on Friday in a chat with Saturday Telegraph in the aftermath of a street advocacy undertaken by his organisation, Azomobor Gregory Foundation to feed the poor and other categories of vulnerable people in the society on Christmas day.

According to him, the Federal Government must see the need to put the issue of food security and poverty on the front burner, saying doing otherwise will spell doom for the country, which he said was sitting on a keg of gun powder occasion by growing poverty and squalor across the land.

While maintaining that the move was in tandem with the spirit of the Yuletide which makes it mandatory for Christians to reach out in love to the less privileged as exemplified by the Lord Jesus Christ, Azomobor maintained that what he saw on ground was scary.

“The opportunity of Christmas festivities is to demonstrate practical love to the people, especially as it concerns the birth of Jesus Christ who came to the world to preach the message of love. There is no better way to demonstrate this than to love humanity.

“Most importantly, you are aware that there has been so much hunger in the land for the last one-year. As we speak now, the level of poverty in Nigeria has increased astronomically. Many Nigerians are living in multi-dimensional poverty,” Azomobor said.

He further added, “We have an emergency on our hands and a pending implosion if the situation is not nipped in the bud. From what I saw, a lot of people are hungry, not just that, they are angry too. If the government does not do anything, many of these hungry Nigerians will eat all of us.”

Apart from the government, Azomobor also urged all well-to-do Nigerians to reach out to the hungry and the less privileged as a means to forestall likely catastrophes in the country.