NO GRAIN IN THE SILOS…

      ….First in the analogous series of the menace of food insecurity in Nigeria today. 

By Nik Ogbulie

There are so many indications now to amplify the level of hunger in the country today. Apart from the very high inflation rate which has put fears into many, there is the daily or hourly change in the prices of almost all goods. A good number of our eateries which used to have long queues during lunch time are empty as many can no longer afford the bills. There is no longer N1000 meal that can go for good food anywhere. Students in the various universities can no longer feed with their usual N500 bill. The cost of sachet water has risen to 100% while only a few number of them can afford meat for the price of N200 for just the size of a kernel, while an egg is now N200. This means that protein as a complement in what is known as balanced diet is gone. This development affects the imported commodities like milk, sugar, teas and beef. Many homes have scrapped tea from their breakfast menu, a development that again is a core invitation to health anarchy. 

I watched two medium income Nigerian women arrive from a popular Lagos food and commodity market yesterday offload their purchases that can empower a new trader to start a food shop in Oshodi or Lekki. They were privileged to have access to funds courtesy of their husbands for the huge purchases, but they were so sad as they compare the commodities one after another with the prices of same goods only two weeks ago. To them, the difference is not less than a 200% increase.

Each of the women as I was meant to understand went to market with about N250,000 considered quite good enough to make a full two months food purchase of yams, tomatoes, onions, dried fish, garlic, beans, pepper, spaghetti, palm oil and salt. According to one of them, the purchases they made with the budget they went to market with is N150,000 higher than was the case before now to buy the same quantity of goods.

The development has been so bad because while the rate of inflation and other intervening variables continue to rise there seems to have not been any change in the income of Nigerians across board. What is happening in Nigeria today is that the same income serves various homes whose costs of living have gone up some 150% higher than what was obtainable 

only three weeks ago.

Unfortunately governments in the country look helpless with failed attempts that would not even impart any difference. There is no strategic partnership with any agricultural development agency to extend any soft landing to the hungry population. The various humanitarian agencies of government that are meant to address this have failed, even when the same government was able to identify about 133 million very poor citizens.

It is now obvious that all the food security efforts of governments as claimed have turned to sour grapes. Government told Nigerians that they have built several silos across the country but indications are rife that most of the claimed silos believed to have been scattered across the country are false. Again, there is no single grain in the make-shift silos available. This explains that government never had any food security plan in its books and have been playing politics with the lives of indigent Nigerians. To the government Silos have just become metaphor for deception; a make-believe claim that they have planned for the future of every citizen. Until now, there are no silos in Nigeria and there are no warehouses for the poor. The same story they played during COVID-19 pandemic are again being replayed. Even the most peaceful parts of Nigeria harbor citizens that look like those from IDP camps or war-thorn countries in spite of their oil and gas sales everyday.

The indication that only about 18.6 million Nigerians are being affected by food crisis is false. The government has failed to provide an adequate environment for business to thrive in the area of Agriculture. Government has failed to provide improved services and products as well as electricity, human capital, financing, infrastructure and security for Nigerians to optimize their activities in the area.

Reports from hospitals indicate that the level of resistance among Nigerians is so low because of poor food intake. Nigerians have continued to be very poor in their immunity level and are dying in droves. Those who are sick do not have money to buy the very costly drugs and cannot take care of medical bills. Because those who run the country do not have the proper knowledge and have been imparting suboptimal performance as leaders. Statistics indicate that there is no slowing down of this trend because the economy is not producing anything, incurring a disequilibrium in her trade with other countries. Unless the forex crisis improves from the present official position of N1600/dollar not many homes will come out of the food crisis situation.

Visits in many shopping mall in the country have indicated a daily price adjustments up to 100%, indicating a rise so steep to be adjusted downwards within an acceptable period. Suppliers to such malls are also complaining of huge reduction in the needed quantities to be purchased since food producers within the local markets and the few importer who can fund foreign exchange from the black market are losing steam due to escalating exchange rate. So many of the very necessary table needs at meal time are either overlooked or forgotten as a matter of cost. Staple foods like bread, garri, yam have become some of the most demanded items in the market and have attracted about 200% rise since the last three months because of its popularity among the over 100 million Nigerians living below poverty line.

The Nigerian government of Senator Bola Tinubu has made gregarious  gregariously moves to debunk this development with many excuses like not being given enough time or the distraction from the opposition and others, the more reasons they give, the more many people continue to slip into the very precarious poverty trap without knowing it. Government’s hurried distribution of various food materials in very small packs across the country is an acceptance of the level of poverty in the country and the speed of its read of the perceived area of endemic poverty to places considered as areas of comfort in the country. The stretch of the infant beggars in the Sahel part of Nigeria can assume a distant two kilometer if each state in those areas are to summon their poverty stricken indigenes to line up for meals. It is the same case in the mangrove and semi-arid parts of the country where food distributors can no longer deliver their goods to because of the disastrous cost of transportation which has risen to about 300% per cent since the last three months. The disequilibrium is getting to a point soon where government would be forced to dismantle all the import restriction measures to give the citizen a common access to food. The problem with import liberalization in Nigeria is that the imported goods leave the country as soon as they arrive in the country based on the poor border controls and the fact that Nigeria’s neighbours face more precarious levels of hunger and food scarcity. In other words, her insistence to strict border management could serve her interest better as long as it appropriately manage the huge funds she is receiving from oil and gas which have been enjoying escalating global patronage over the last six months.

The quest to digest the level of hunger in the land has been traced beyond the eradication of insecurity which has driven away farmers from their farms and the growing poor incentive to farmers, distributors, transporters and manufacturers but a comprehensive eradication of corruption and the capturing of the private sector zeal by state. Huge sums of public funds are being diverted to property development across the country, luxury life-style of many state-craft managers is increasing while there are still no positive plans yet to address the wages and salaries issue that have been a major crux. The present situation in the country is that the monthly salary bill of a minimum wage earner in the country which is N30,000 ( about $19).

The picture of hunger in Nigeria would better be understood from a most current development where people were stampeded to death and even students left their studies to move about looking for food or keeping vigil at any identifiable government emergency food centre to wait for relief. It reminds many of the win-the-war efforts during the Nigerian civil war where people fought at the various Caritas or WCC food centres just to have a meal each day. It is becoming that bad.