March 03, (THEWILL) – Nigeria needs to step up its game and learn one or two lessons from Ukraine, a country that is presently at war with Russia but has not relented in its bid to feed its people. It is sad to note that while Ukraine still supplies grains to the world, especially Africa, Nigeria, which is not at war, is unable to feed her people who are daily crying and dying of hunger even in peace time.
Ukraine has just demonstrated that although the country is still at war, it remains a global food basket with the donation of 25,000 tonnes of wheat as emergency food assistance to Nigeria under the auspices of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) response in the North-East. The donation of the grains was part of Ukraine’s humanitarian ‘Grain from Ukraine’ initiative launched by President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The ”ebi npawa o” (we are hungry) cry among most Nigerians now is no more a lousy prank but a clear message indicating the intense hunger and misery among most Nigerians as evident in the recent stampede at the Nigerian Customs Service office in Yaba, Lagos, which resulted in the death of seven Nigerians while trying their luck to get a 25kg bag of rice for N10,000.
A recent attack on a spaghetti-carrying truck in Zaria is another manifestation of the real hunger in the land and the desperation of the people, just as protests in various Internally Displaced Peoples (IDP) camps across the North East as well as the protest rally by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) are ways of passing the real message that things are no longer at ease to the Federal Government.
It is a big shame that the recent Customs rice bonanza suddenly turned another tragedy for people battling acute poverty and hunger in the land as the cause of the stampede was the desperation of a people to survive the harsh economic climate that they have suddenly found themselves in the face of the massive loss of the value of Naira and increasing cost of almost every item.
With inflation in the country frequently on the rise, currently standing at 29.9 percent and its attendant effects on the skyrocketing prices of goods and services, this is really not the best of times for Nigeria, which appears not ready to shed its inglorious toga as the poverty capital of the world. It is sad that while countries like Argentina and India are showing signs of improvement, the same cannot be said of Nigeria in its present state.
As if the government is even more confused on the real solution to the prevailing problems, all the interventions made have not really achieved the desired results as more Nigerians continue to groan under the biting pangs of hunger. It is either that the solutions are not effective enough or they are not really appropriate for the Nigerian situation, the government is also battling with saboteurs among its officials, especially by those who are bent on benefitting from the misery of the people.
Rather than concentrate on frequent give-aways under the guise of the so-called palliatives that are not even alleviating anything, the focus should be on mass concentration on agriculture to produce food on a large scale to fight acute hunger and misery in the country. Government at all levels should mobilise the citizens, especially the youth and unemployed, to go back to the farms and cultivate food crops to feed the nation.
A state of emergency should be declared on food production to make it mandatory for governments to lead the way in food production as a government that cannot feed its people is already a failed government and no amount of propaganda and lies can change the narrative. Mass mobilisation to the farms, rather than lousy palliatives and give-aways that keep the recipients as perpetual hangers-on, is the way forward.
Security should be stepped up to protect the farmers who are daily fleeing the farms as a result of the activities of marauding herdsmen and killer terrorists who have taken over the farms across the country. The forests should be cleared of all bandits, using technology such as drones in support of the military, as it is only beasts and animals that live in the forest, not sane and normal human beings.
With well over 26.5 million Nigerians grappling with acute food shortage across the states, according to a recent World Bank Human Index report, the Federal Government needs to act fast and move from mere rhetorics to real action in its response to the big problem at hand. This is not the time to play politics with the lives of the people or time for blame game on who is responsible for what and the likes. The problem at hand is a national crisis and should be treated as such even as it very shameful that a country as blessed as Nigeria cannot feed her people.
About the Author
Amos Esele is the Deputy Editor of THEWILL Newspaper. He has over two decades of experience on the job.
