nisation (FAO), an agency of the United Nations (UN), last Thursday handed the rulers of Nigeria the terrifying data on the country’s man-made food security crisis.
In its October/November 2020 Cadre Harmonise analysis presented to stakeholders in Abuja, the FAO lamented that 9.8 million residents of 16 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) were toiling with hunger and malnutrition.
The report listed Borno, Adamawa, Yobe, Benue, Gombe, Taraba, Katsina, Jigawa, Kano, Bauchi, Plateau, Kaduna, Kebbi, Sokoto, Niger and the FCT as battling futilely with hunger and malnutrition.
Fred Kafeero, the FAO representative in Nigeria and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), who presented the report, called on government to promptly intervene to halt the famine engulfing Africa’s largest economy.
The federal government is aware of the famine in the midst of stupendous affluence. Two months ago, Ibrahim Gambari, chief of staff to President Muhammadu Buhari lamented: “The recent surge in national food prices is gradually evolving to a food crisis with the ability to threaten the nation’s food security”.
The FAO report suggests that Gambari was tragically prophetic in his assessment.
Punch newspaper illustrated the chilling news on Nigeria’s man-made food security crisis with pictures of children in advanced stage of malnutrition.
The Punch picture is a sad reminder of the thousands of children who died from Kwashiorkor, a malnutrition illness during Nigeria’s 30-month civil war.
Ironically Nigeria is again at war, this time in its north-eastern flank.
However, the hunger and starvation painted by the FAO cannot be blamed squarely on the war with the religious fanatics in the north-east. It is a contribution of many factors.
The 16 states captured in the FAO analysis fall within Nigeria’s food basket zone.
Consequently, the nearly 10 million people in the zone are starving in the midst of plenty. The food is there, but they are too poor to buy it because 22 million Nigerians are jobless at the moment.
The FAO report confirms the data from the World Poverty Clock which contends that 102 million Nigerians now wallow in abject poverty.
The war in the north-east has reduced the pace of farming in Borno, Yobe and a chunk of Adamawa states.
However, the same cannot be said of the other 13 states and the FCT which are hundreds of kilometers away from the battlefield. The starvation and malnutrition plaguing the 16 states and FCT, Nigeria’s seat of power, is the consequence of the unparalleled corruption and skewed income distribution system plaguing Nigeria.
Thousands of residents of the FCT are starving and suffering from malnutrition in a city where the nation’s 469 lawmakers are paid salaries and allowances far higher than that of the president of the United States of America, the world’s largest economy.
The marauding hunger in Nigeria emanates from the weird income distribution system that leaves more than 80 per cent of the nation’s revenue in the hands of less than 0.005 per cent of the population, while the inconsequential majority starve to death.
The looting of hoarded COVID-19 palliatives by hoodlums who hijacked the #ENDSARS peaceful protests, showed graphic images of the selfishness of Nigerian politicians.
Millions of tons of food items contributed by the private sector to be shared to starving residents who could no longer eke out a living during the lockdown ordered by the federal government to contain the spread of the deadly COVID-19 pandemic were cornered by politicians and hoarded in warehouses across the country while more than 10 million are in the throes of malnutrition.
Nigerian politicians have intrinsic penchant for hoarding everything including the money they loot from public treasury.
Tons of raw cash both in naira and scarce foreign currencies are stored away in septic tanks and other unholy places in politicians’ homes when the federal, state and local governments are in dire need of funds.
The money looted by politicians and top civil servants is not useful to the looters because they do not need it.
They have more than enough and cannot spend the loot in the next 100 years if they live like normal humans who sleep in one tiny portion of a bed in a monstrous bedroom, eat only three tiny meals in a day and seat in one tiny corner in the limousines they buy with hundreds of millions of naira looted from public treasury.
The money is equally not useful to society because it is out of the banking system where it could be lent to fund users who would invest in lawful ventures that would create jobs for the starving millions captured in the FAO report.
The starvation in the 16 states and FCT captured in the FAO report is not really about famine caused by poor harvest.
The food deficit emanating from Nigeria’s primitive farming method is not enough to keep 10 million people in the throes of malnutrition.
The truth is that most of the starving masses just do not have the money to buy what is available in the market.
An odd combination of weak naira for imported food items and high cost of transporting locally produced food items to the markets from inaccessible rural communities have conspired to price the items out of the reach of the starving 10 million people in the 16 states and FCT.
Food is incredibly cheap in Adamawa state which is listed as one of the 16 states where almost 10 million people are battling with advanced stage of malnutrition.
However, a truck hauling food from Adamawa or Kebbi state wades through scores of check points mounted by various security agencies.
The truck driver parts with a minimum of N300 at each of the check points.
That and the rising cost of fuel and high cost of vehicle maintenance conspire to price the food items out of the reach of the jobless poor.
Nigeria must hasten its clumsy move at rehabilitating the country’s comatose rail system.
That is the cheapest means of transporting all sorts of goods.
Besides, the federal government must cut its outrageous cost of governance to free resources for fixing decaying infrastructures that would empower the private sector to create jobs for the starving millions.
The World Poverty Clock contends that Nigeria creates six extremely poor people every minute.
That is the picture captured by the FAO hunger and malnutrition analysis. It can only be reversed by massive job creation and mechanized farming.
