A few months ago, Nigeria’s First Lady, Remi Tinubu drew the irk of critics when she not only put up a campaign for home gardening but demonstrated her belief in it, by exposing the garden she planted in the State House, as her contribution to the national fight against food insecurity. Some opponents of the First Lady and her husband, President Bola Tinubu thought gardening around the seat of power, the Aso Rock Villa, was a joke taken too far. But they were wrong. This advisory thinks she was right on time with her apolitical campaign.
Senator Oluremi Tinubu, an astute politician and former law-maker of note, led by example when she unveiled her home garden to the public and called on both men and women to encourage food security in Nigeria through growing vegetables and rearing animals and birds for consumption and income.
Soon after the First Lady’s clarion call for more efforts towards food sufficiency, former Deputy Governor of Abia State, Dr Chris Akomas led out scores of other former and serving Deputy Governors to a conference where they made several policy suggestions to both government and private sector, including more funding for agriculture for sustainable food security. The National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress APC, Dr Abdullahi Ganduje was on hand to take the message home.
Farming around the home is no new invention. It was also said that former America’s First Lady, Michelle Obama in 2009, changed how America eats, for good, with her successful fight against childhood obesity in schools, which she waged through her “Let’s Move” campaign. She also planted a garden at the White House, to demonstrate her campaign for healthy eating, just as Remi Tinubu did at Aso Rock Villa in 2024.
During the World War 2, America’s urban farming produced about 40% of the country’s vegetables in 1944. And this feat was achieved through the encouragement of patriots who Oluremi Tinubu mimics today in Nigeria. But for urban agriculture, who knows, if the Allied Forces of Europe would not have suffered acute hunger and kwashiorkor. The British Plough-Up campaign of 1941-1943, expectedly, resulted in increased food production for the eventual victorious forces of the Allied Forces, in areas and cities where the enemy forces had not encroached upon.
Wars, insurgency, banditary and kidnapping are some of the insecure conditions which impact universal farming and agricultural production in history; apart from natural disasters such as drought, famine and flooding. In Nigeria and at present, numerous farmlands are known to be under the occupation of various insurgent groups. This situation, no doubt, impacts negatively, on agricultural production and threatens the food security of the country; and by implication produces hunger and food insecurity.
Between 1968 and 1969, most 15 and 16-year old boys and girls (including this writer) were neither in school nor on the farm, in the Biafran region, during the Nigerian civil war. A few of them who had the opportunity, found their way back to the few secondary schools which opened in the ‘liberated’ areas. Farmlands were insecure for them, due to the military activities of both ‘Biafran’ and the federal troops; and natives could not produce enough for the Biafran population, let alone for export and more. Even the para-military organisation known as the Biafran Land Army could not do enough to prevent, especially children, from dieing of malnutrition and kwashiorkor which resulted from inadequate in-take of food and protein in the Biafran enclave.
The reason why it is important for countries to provide adequate food for their people in a sustainable manner, is because, no matter how often the people eat, they will still need to eat again and again. Food production and even provision cannot be left to chance. A lot of work and planning go into food availability. Even in the midst of the most intractable wars and conflicts, government and its private sector come together to utilize the most productive and food-yielding regions, and safe parts of the country, which have comparative advantage for optimizing food production, no matter how dire the situation.
The Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka, a country formerly known as Ceylon, waged a war of independence for their homeland, Tamil Eelam for 26 years until the Sri Lankan national army defeated the tigers in 2009. But before the civil war ended, 31% of the adult population of the country had made the sacrifice of cutting back their food consumption, just to allow their children feed, even though not to fill. The food situation was so unbelievably bad, especially in the areas controlled by the tigers, who were regarded as the world’s most vicious militant group of their time.
Today, 15 years after Sri Lanka’s civil war ended, the country is still ravaged by economic problems, including food shortages. It has even got so bad that Sri Lanka which now leans heavily on imports for almost everything, is going hungry again due to the out-break of war between Russia and Ukraine; which, threatens to cut the country’s food security chain and disrupt grain supply from Ukraine. Sri Lankans are however, back to the farm, but it appears the 26 years of destruction by the war cannot be fixed in 15 years.
In the Igbo-speaking areas of Nigeria, farmers, especially the women, are periodically scared off their farms by the activities of traditional head-hunters who kidnap for rituals or slavery.
The Igbo translation of the head-hunter is Ogbuisi. The criminal activity of the Ogbuisi also has its negative impact on the food security of the region, if not in several other regions of Nigeria. But what the men did to stave off the activities of Ogbuisi was to accompany their wives and children to the farms, armed with guns and matchets to protect them during planting and harvesting. This is not to dismiss the incidence of ogbuisi with a wave of the hand. Even back in the days, Ogbuisi had been a factor in the reduction of agricultural produce in Igboland; thereby encouraging urban agriculture and backyard gardening, way back. Women, especially widows did not wait to be told to embrace home or near-by farming which was safer, even though it fetched less income, due to the presence of Ogbuisi.
At the national level, activities of bandits and kidnappers have gravely affected the economy of Nigeria and many federating states, simply because majority of its people who live in the rural areas, ache out their living and livelihood from farming and sundry matters.
In Zamfara State, for instance, banditary and other insurgent group activities have significantly diverstated the economy and rendered the poor, poorer. Food and livestock production are at an alltime low because farmlands and grazing areas are mostly under the control of militants and kidnappers, who among other things demand ransom and all kinds of taxes from the farming population. In some parts of Katsina State, it is said that farmers’ income reduced to as low as 15% due to the activities of bandits, insurgents and militants. Many farmers are said to have abandoned their farmlands, with those who deal mostly with ruminants, relocating or threatening to relocate, to further worsen the poor economy of the agrarian state.
Public safety, food scarcity, hunger, inflation and unemployment are of concern in many parts of Nigeria today. In Benue State, farmer-herder clashes have led to the loss of over 30,000 lives and about 60,000 houses, displacing numerous farming families and forcing tens of thousands of children out of school. Health-care is challenged, economic and social life are heavily impacted. And to say that Nigeria’s image is damaged both locally and internationally, will be an understatement.
The reality of the present situation is that Nigeria must react and rise to the occasion, the way other nations did, when faced with similar predicaments in the past. History has it that the allied forces of the United States of America, Britain, the Soviet Union, among others, faced such a grim food security situation that the final onslaught of the WW2, the battle of Normandy, was fought by soldiers who fed on dry meat pie and popcorn on the D-day of June 6, 1944. This battle ironically led to the end of the war, after Germany surrendered in France on May 7, 1945.
Enough of ancient, diasporan history. The fact back here remains that there is hunger, and there is food shortage in Nigeria and many other African countries. So, whatever individuals, governments at the federal, states and local levels can do to ameliorate the situation, is welcome and should be encouraged. Oluremi Tinubu, the First Lady of Nigeria was not wrong when she took an individual step to encourage people to grow vegetables around their homes; as their contribution to the health, food security and development of the country.
