Though the Nigerian government insists the country has enough food reserve to contain the biting hunger in the land, opinion leaders are warning that citizens are most likely to revolt if the hunger persists unchecked
By Ikenna Princewill
It was a national embarrassment on Monday, February 5, 2024. Both Minna the capital city of Niger State and the ancient city of Kano in North west zone, boiled. Inhabitants of the two capital cities trooped out in their numbers to block major roads against the free flow of traffic. What was amiss? Protests. Protest against hunger. Protest against hardship. Protest against unbridled rise in the cost of food items.
The protesters charged, they wailed and lamented. Their agony was shared by other fellow citizens across the country who have lost bearing due to unending rise in the cost of food and medicine. The situation is getting worse by the day, yet it appears the government had gone to sleep. However, the government, shortly after the protests, seemed to have woken up from its slumber to give a feeble reaction to the cause of the protest. In the government’s estimation, there is no food shortage in Nigeria.
In Minna, the protesters who were mostly women and children, came out at 7am. Numerous youths were to join the protests bearing placards with different inscriptions such as, “We are dying of hunger”, “APC government has brought hardship to Nigerians”, “Foodstuffs are no longer affordable to Nigerians”, “Bandits have taken over Nigeria” among others.
Many of the protesters vowed that the protests would continue until government was forced to address the prevailing hunger and hardship. According to them, “Enough is enough. This is just the beginning of the protest, and we will not stop until the government does something about this hardship. We are tired, people are hungry and are dying every day.
“The continued rise in food prices is no longer bearable. There is hardship everywhere in the country. Ordinary Nigerians can no longer afford three square meals, and the government does not care about what is happening.
“The leaders are only stealing the money in order to cope with the current situation, not that they have solution to it”.
In Kano, governor Abba Yusuf said he would take the matter to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s attention. He gave the assurance on the day the protests were going on during a meeting with the business community and other stakeholders in the state. “The people are suffering, and there is the need to do something about it”, the governor said.
Following the protests, the opposition Labour Party (LP) has advised the Federal Government to seek urgent help to address the crushing hunger before it becomes unbearable. In a statement by the party’s spokesperson, Obiora Ifo, the LP said it was deeply concerned about the increasing cost of living in Nigeria and how millions of people were battling with food shortages since the beginning of 2024.
“As at today, essential commodities such as rice, garri, flour, protein have witnessed exponential increase in prices since January”, the statement read in part.
Warning the government of President Tinubu against impending revolution over food crisis, a newspaper columnist, Majeed Dahiru said the cause of the protest was as a result of millions of Nigerians feeling helpless and losing hope in the ability of the government to contain the hunger in the land. “Nigerians have become helpless. They have lost hope in the government. Hopelessness is what is driving people to protest. When a man loses hope, he has lost everything. You put people in a hole and you’re still digging the hole.
“The removal of fuel subsidy, and floating the naira are responsible for the hardship. Reverse anti- people policies”, Dahiru said.
Sounding his own warning against hunger in Nigeria, the General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Pastor Enoch Adeboye, said only the common people in Nigeria are the ones bearing the brunt of hunger, while the president, governors and other high profile people are enjoying.
Pastor Adeboye dropped the hint on Sunday, February 4, 2024 during the Thanksgiving Service of the church held at the Throne of Grace Parish Headquarters, Ebute Meta, Lagos. He said, “Remember at the beginning of the year, God said things are going to get worse before they get better. If you know the value of naira to the dollar by January I, if you compare the value of the naira to dollar today, you would say, it looks like this boy knows what he was saying.
“The president doesn’t need to know how much they sell bread, that is none of his business, it would get to his table when he wants to eat.
“It is the common people like you and I who can tell that at the beginning of the year, this is how much they are selling rice, because we have to buy”.
Former Vice President and the presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) at the 2023 presidential election, Atiku Abubakar, had also added his voice to those calling Tinubu to retool his economic policies to avoid endangering the welfare of the citizens. Atiku made the call on Sunday, February 4, 2023 in a statement in which he claimed that the Tinubu government performance in the past seven months, especially as it concerns the economy, has been nothing better than disaster.
“The economy’s performance has, in recent weeks and months, been a subject of intense discourse among Nigerian citizens at home and abroad.
“Nigerians are gravely concerned, and rightly so, that Tinubu’s poor response to Nigeria’s economic challenges is setting the stage for prolonged and deeper domestic economic crisis.
“His economic policies, drawn from a so-called renewed hope agenda, are ironically dashing hopes, creating pain and causing despair.
“The private sector is shrinking by the day as small businesses are emasculated and as multinational companies, confused and weary of the economy, leave Nigeria in droves.
“The intense cost of living pressure has created more misery for the poor in towns and villages. There is hunger in the land as basic commodities, including bread, are becoming out of reach for average Nigerians.
“His 2024 budget is business as usual exercise, bereft of concrete ideas and actions that would support Nigeria’s journey towards economic transformation-consisting mainly of wasteful expenditures to cater to a bloated Federal Government. Budget 2024 will not facilitate growth and cannot empower our citizens to earn a living and live a decent life.
“BAT has shown no capacity to deal with the diverse and disastrous impact of the new subsidy regime on the people and businesses and the new foreign exchange policy, which provides for a free-floating exchange rate”.
But Federal Government has disagreed with Atiku and all those calling for economic retool to avoid imminent revolution. The Chief of Staff to President Tinubu, Femi Gbajabiamila and the National Security Adviser (NSA), Nuhu Ribadu, after meeting with some federal ministers at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, on Tuesday, February 6, have claimed that there was enough food to go round the suffering masses.
Briefing State House correspondents after the meeting, the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, said Tinubu had directed a Presidential Committee to arrest the ugly situation. He added that there was enough food in the country, but some elements were trying to take advantage of the high food prices and naira depreciation to cause havoc.
“We just rounded off a meeting. It is a special presidential committee to address the issue of food shortage or lack of enough food on the table of most Nigerians.
“This is just the beginning of the meeting. It is going to continue tomorrow. The government is very concerned about what Nigerians are going through, especially what has happened in Minna yesterday, and therefore government is taking some action to ensure that Nigerians have some relief in terms of the availability of food on the table
“Now, some these will involve unlocking the foods that are available in most of the storage facilities around the country. You know that the Federal Ministry of Agriculture has some food reserve? That is going to be made available to Nigerians”.
In the mean time, the Federal Government has ordered the release of 102,000 metric tonnes of rice and maize from the National Grain Reserve, while promising that if the hunger persists after the release, government may consider foods importation to tackle the menace. The Federal Government also threatened that those hoarding foodstuffs would be severely dealt with.
The Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, disclosed this on Thursday, February 8, 2024 while briefing State House correspondents after a meeting of the Special Presidential Committee on Emergency Food Intervention at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
He said the President has directed that food would be made available, no matter whatever it will take.
The decision came after three days of deliberation by the committee, in reaction to the protests by Nigerians over high cost of food and other economic challenges.
The minister also said the government would mete out appropriate sanctions against food hoarders, adding that emergency situations required emergency measures to ensure food was available to Nigerians.
He called on Nigerians to be patriotic and desist from hoarding food, while the government would deliberately invest massively in food production.
On the consideration of food importation if the suffering continues, the minister said: “Now, the third item is that the government is also looking at the possibility, if it becomes absolutely necessary as an interim measure on the short run, to also import some of these commodities immediately so that these commodities can be made available to Nigerians within the next couple of weeks.”
