Being buffeted left, right, front and back by hardship, hunger and starvation, and sicknesses, Nigerians across geopolitical zones lament that they have resigned to fate and prepared for death when it comes, since the government of the day appears to have no solution on ground
By Ikenna Princewill
Nearly 4,000 years after its occurrence, the story of the “Widow of Zarephat”, has regained currency in modern day Nigeria. The Zarephat widow lived in the land of Israel, in the days of Prophet Elijah and King Ahab when severe drought hit Israel and farmers were unable to cultivate their farms.
The drought led to severe food shortages in the land thereby triggering dire economic consequences that resulted in famine, malnutrition and starvation. The economic situation in Israel at the time became so hard to an extent that many citizens slaughtered their children and used their flesh to make sumptuous meals which they ate and waited for imminent death. Numerous Israelites perished as a result of hardship and hunger.
But a widow lived in the city of Zarephat with her only son. As the famine worsened, the widow and her son were preparing themselves to die like their other fellow citizens who had died of hunger. Death starred them in the eyes, and they had just a portion of food left for them to eat before death would swallow them.
As the Zarephat widow gathered firewood in tears, while wailings were heard all over her neighborhood as death continued to knock on doors, she looked up her door post to behold a strange man standing by her door. The outward appearance of the stranger, with dreadlocks and flowing gown, told her the man standing before her was a prophet-a man of God as they were fondly addressed those days.
As she made a move to interrogate her visitor’s mission, he beckoned to her and her son. When they stood before the prophet, he had announced to their utter surprise: “I am Prophet Elijah. Go into your house and prepare food for me because I’m famished and starving. The famine had affected me seriously”.
Yes, Elijah had been a man of God who performed miracles for sure, the widow thought, but why is he asking for her very last meal before the expected death of herself and son? Whoever told Elijah the prophet that they had a meal in the house? Never, she would not oblige the request, it’s suicidal because, “As the Lord your God lives”, she told Elijah, “I do not have food”. Elijah was quick to respond, “You, truly, have a plate of food, God told me so. Kindly give me a little of it to eat”.
At that point the bewildered widow dropped the bombshell that depicted the situation in Nigeria at present: “Only a handful of flour in a bin, and a little oil in a jah; and see, I am gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it and die”.
The Zarephat widow’s story is repeating itself in Nigeria under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu Government. People are waiting helplessly to be consumed by hardship and hunger because they have no hope for living in Nigeria. Even hope itself has fled Nigeria in the midst of the squeezing hardship most citizens are going through in this democratic dispensation.
Since May/June 2023 when Tinubu announced the removal of fuel subsidy and floated the naira, things, economically, have fallen apart and the center can no longer hold. Naira has depreciated to all time low to dollar in an ever rising exchange rate that has got to N1,600/$1. Inflation and food inflation has soared. Hunger and starvation, and sicknesses are ravaging Nigerians to an extent that citizens are now selling their children to purchase staple foods. Nigerians have begun to kill one another over a meal. The weakest of the poor have confessed they are waiting for death to catch up with them.
The poverty situation is alarming. Many Nigerians are already throwing caution in the wind in their desperate reaction to the reality on ground. Otherwise how would one decipher the situation where a hungry plantain thief would muster the courage to withstand the owner of bunch of plantain she stole, and murdered her in cold blood? It actually happened. It is the evidence of hunger in the land and of citizens’ resolve to face death as with the Zarephat widow.
It happened in Agada, Abua area of Rivers State on Wednesday, January 31, 2024. Mrs Esther Godday, a mother of nine, and pregnant for her 10th child, in a fit of rage, hacked down another woman whom she (Esther) stole her plantain. Esther has been unemployed alongside her husband, Godday for many years.
On the fateful day, Esther had abandoned her hungry children at home because they are not in school. Because of mother’s love, she could not stand the agony of her children being ravaged by hunger while her husband had gone out to search for a probable Good Samaritan. In Esther’s desperation, she sneaked into the farm of the deceased, Mrs Imera Idema, and stole a bunch of plantain. Idema caught Esther in the very act and raised the alarm. Physical struggle and exchange of fisticuffs ensued. Both women had machetes which they quickly deployed to attack each other. They both inflicted each other with machete cuts which resulted in the death of the owner of the plantain.
The sad story is an aberration of the Nigerian society in the 21st century where in decent climes even animals have enough meals to eat. Thus, Nigeria has become a jungle where there is intense competition and struggle among bestial animals, just for survival, no laws, no morality but marked by ruthless struggles.
Under the dismal atmosphere, parents in Nigeria have resorted to selling their children for as low as $20 (N30,000) to human traffickers in order to buy food to eat and wait for hunger induced death. This situation was revealed recently by a humanitarian body, “Concreate Humanitarian Aid”. The humanitarian body disclosed this in Lagos on Thursday, February 1, 2024 during an event, “Sustainable Reintegration for Victims of Trafficking in Human Beings” Stakeholders Roundtable with government bodies, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and others held at the Eko Hotel and Suites, Victoria Island, Lagos. The body regretted how bad the economic situation has been in the country which compels citizens to give out their children to human traffickers at a fee.
There is severe hunger in the land. It is undisputable. For example, in the recently released Global Hunger Index (GHI) for the year 2023, Nigeria ranked 109th out of the 25 countries in the survey. The country scored 28.3 percent in the survey where countries that scored between 20.0 and 34.9 percent are said to be having serious hunger crisis in their land. In the Index even smaller economies such as Sudan, Zimbabwe, Guinea and Democratic Republic of Congo achieved better ranking positions than Nigeria. The GHI ranking shows that Nigeria has become the 16th most hungry country in the world.
Nigeria’s inflation rate is at 28.92 percent, while food inflation rate is 33.93 percent. A projection by the World Food Programme indicates that in 2024, about 26.5 million Nigerians would face severe hunger compared to the 18.6 million that suffered severe hunger in the country in 2023.
But as desperately hungry citizens plot to flee the country by any means to escape death occasioned by hardship, simply referred to as the JAPA syndrome, the European Union has raised the alarm over the dire situation facing illegal immigrants in the continent. The Belgian Government had recently raised the alarm that Nigeria has the highest number of prostitutes living in Belgium. But the Director General Office of Foreigners, Belgium Mr Freddy Rosemont in early February disclosed to media men in Abuja that most of the Nigerian prostitutes sleep in open streets under severe cold weather among other illegal migrants in Belgium. This revelation applies to all Nigerians who entered Europe illegally.
Rosemont said, “For the moment, there are lots of these asylum seekers living in Brussels on the streets, and I can assure you that the temperature in Brussels is not what it is here in Abuja. It got to minus seven, minus five. Now it’s around zero Celsius.
“So, it’s really not easy to survive in Brussels without help, without assistance.
“We are by law obliged to give that assistance but we simply can’t do it because places are simply filled up. It’s a very painful situation for Belgium, but like that if you look at the newspapers, if you look at the journals, if you walk in the streets in Brussels, you’re going to see everywhere, people sleeping on the streets and people trying to survive without any help”.
The desperate struggle by Nigerians masses to survive hunger and starvation in the country is compelling many citizens, mostly the youths, to take desperate measures to better their lot including running out of the country by any means in search of greener pastures abroad. These citizens vow that they would rather die under harsh weather conditions abroad than to die of hunger in Nigeria.
