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 eatries 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 satchet 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 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 governament 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.
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 Nigerins is so low because of poor food intake. Nigerians have continued to be very low in their immunity 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.
