This piece by Ayuba caught my attention as I was preparing for this week’s edition of Melting Point.
I was almost rounding up my thoughts on another issue when suddenly my mind deviated and found itself reading through this. I immediately paused, meditated briefly and then decided to suspend what I was doing to reproduce this beautiful thoughts on such a sensitive matter. Myself and other columnists have written on the escalating, excruciating poverty in the land and the pitiful conditions of many Nigerian families, but the situation has remained the same. Government has not done something drastic to move people away from the situation hence this piece. Succesive governments are fond of giving and raising hopes for the people but always not doing the needful to overcome the situation. How are other nations able to do the magic to address the hunger situations in the countries that we cannot do here in Nigeria? What is the magic that we cannot copy and do here?
The purpose of this piece is to draw government’s attention to the increasing poverty and hunger in the land, reading from other concerned minds. It’s unbelievable to imagine a nation so rich in human and natural resources and yet its people are part of the poorest class in the world today. Going through the streets on our major cities today, one can but be restless, sleepless and devastated with the rising quality of poverty that is raging. Different stories of various dimensions of modern day poverty stares one in the face daily. Many people eat 4 or 5 times a week out of the 7 days that made up the week. The story of one meal per day is rarely the case anymore. People are forced to be fasting including little children due to lack of food,thereby causing ulcer even in little children. Should we continue like this until the world folds up? Should we keep watching fellow humans dying because of lack of food? Should government continue to spend money on other issues and allow people die of hunger? Is there anything more important than giving attention to this issue? What can governments do to address this problem? Is it beyond solution or its lack of compassion in those who don’t feel it? Let’s get the thoughts of Ayuba on this matter.
“Abject poverty is when people are living below 2.15 dollars a day based on the new World Bank benchmark. Based on the current exchange rate of about ₦1100 to a dollar, any Nigerian that is living below the spending power of ₦1, 913.50 per day is abjectly poor.
The question now is how many of the over 200 million Nigerians could sustainably afford just ₦500 a day? Nobody is talking about spending ₦1, 913.50 in this country not even the elites with the exception of the political class who are solely drawing from tax payers money.
I read a book, “Diezmo” which talks about the story of survival. In the story, there aroused a time when a people lived in famine where those who afford a grain of rice a day were perceived lucky. Reading the story I told myself this cannot be real but a concocted take from imagination, a fictional piece that have no place in reality. Little did I know that the reality of lack where even a grain of rice is not even there for most families is here with us today.
Most Nigerians are not only living in abject poverty but dying from it. The evidence of the reality of the citizens dying in abject poverty and hunger abounds.
There was this old but hardworking man who should be in his 80s. He sells blankets on one of the streets around the Terminus area, Jos. One day he told me ‘they’ who were selling in that market relied solely on their trade for daily living but 14 days counting, he has not sold a single blanket.
I used to give him my ‘widow’s might’ when passing around his place but I was told when I didn’t see him and asked but was told that he had died.
Age is there but the story he shared with me about his inability to sell kept telling me that hunger might have killed him. In the man’s dead, hardwork also dies on the altar of hunger!
Just yesterday, I watched a video which reported a young lady in Kano State who died of hunger. The video has it that the deceased family were passing through unbearable hard times and were living on one meal a day. Therefore, the lady decided that she was going to fast and use the one meal to break her fast but while doing that, ulcer caught her and that led to her untimely death.
The father of the late girl narrated the saddest story at the grave side before she was buried. This lady died of conditional fasting!
The story of the deceased old man and this young lady are just but specimens of many dying of hunger. Abject poverty and hunger are snuffing life out of us one by one. So sad!
These are desperate times for Nigerians. This excruciating hunger and hunger must not be allowed to continue. Something desperate but, also, strategic has to be done.
A nation that has been overtaken by hunger and starvation cannot even afford to cope with crimes and criminality. Poverty and hunger are springboards for crimes and even violent conflicts.
Nigeria is already sitting on a time bomb. The security situation in the country is already delicate and if the citizens are pushed to the wall, they will have no option but to fall back on the rich few and it will be sorry for the rich and the leaders.
Rightly or wrongly, what puts food on the table of suffering Nigerians is what matters. As the government tries to encourage production in the country, price control, provision of palliatives in transportation and the relaxation of border closure are the way to go in the short-run.
Deregulated exchange rate in an import driven economy is a direct invitation for hyper and imported inflation. In order to import, import consuming nations need the currency of international exchange, especially, the dollar to go to the international market. This will raise the value of that currency far and above the domestic currency, the naira in the case of Nigeria.
Apart from disease and conflict, abject poverty and hunger have become some of the leading causes of death in Nigeria. No statistic is required to proof this; the reality is staring us in the face.
If we do not kill abject poverty, hunger and starvation in Nigeria; these monsters will kill us. Good policies have no meaning if they do not translate into the welfare and wellbeing of the citizenry. May God help us to step out and conquer the worse enemy of man: Hunger. Let the poor not only breathe but live functional lives!
These are austerity times and we have to treat them as such. Poverty is not a crime except if we are not doing anything to address it. The political class must not live under the delusion that they are confortable and the poverty of the poor is an exclusive woe of the poor. The poor are not only watching but scheming to deal with hardless rich within their reach which they, rightly or wrongly, percieved as the architect of their poverty.
If the poor cannot feed, the rich are in trouble. In other words, when a poor man lives in the neighbourhood of a rich man, the tendency is for the poor man to steal because of the aroma that is arising from the kitchen of the rich. In abject poverty, if the hungry poor does not kill the rich, then, the rich is lucky and should thank God.”
Let this piece brings out the humanity in our leaders amd let’s begin to think outside the box for a lasting solution. Palliatives are not the solution. They cannot even go round every person in need. Our system of palliatives only adds to the woes because only quarter or less of the hungry population gets a miserable funny allocation of an unimaginable quality and quantity of a commodity. Palliatives are interim measures that are deceptive. Concrete and more lasting productive measures be put in place to ensure availability of food for the teeming population. Since the nation is very rich in arable land resources, all forms of practical agriculture be encouraged and made mandatory to boost productivity and ensure food security. Without food, poverty will never go away no matter the policy of government. Our governments at all levels must work hard, think outside the box to ensure that the people breath. Our growing population must not be allowed to explode in the negative, but be diligently engaged for sustainable survival. The situation is bad and is getting worst everyday. We must halt it or we pay the price in no distant time to come. When it happens, God forbids, all of us will pay for it, and there will be no place for anyone to run to.
We’ve got the edge. Get real-time reports, breaking scoops, and exclusive angles delivered straight to your phone. Don’t settle for stale news. Join LEADERSHIP NEWS on WhatsApp for 24/7 updates →
Join Our WhatsApp Channel
