Inside Tinubu’s Republic Of Hunger

By Emeka Alex Duru

It was not funny watching Imo state governor, Senator Hope Uzodimma, in a needless frenzy in Abuja last Tuesday. Uzodimma, the Chairman of the Progressives Governors Forum (PGF), was on a tall task to convince Nigerians that his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), had performed well for them. To fortify the claims, he argued that the current economic crisis in the country is a global phenomenon, not the making of the Bola Tinubu administration.

“Politically speaking, we don’t need to overflog the horse. The truth of the matter is that the APC has done very well in Nigeria. What is happening currently is a global economic problem,” he stated while speaking at the party’s National Secretariat, where he led some members of the forum on a visit to the party’s leadership.

The governor added that President Tinubu was putting in place policies to address the country’s current economic challenges, given the kind of situation he met upon his assumption of office.

While Uzodimma preached on the largely utopian feats of the government, his party man, the Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Abubakar Kyari, was busy elsewhere, dramatising the benevolence of the president in approving a 150-day duty-free window for importation of some staple food items to mitigate the hunger in the land.

He said, “We have heard the cries of Nigeria over the prices of food items and condiments, with some now describing tomato as gold and proposing a variety of recipes to prepare soups and dishes with some of the overly priced food items.

“As a government under the leadership of President Tinubu, members of the Federal Executive Council, and indeed all other operatives in the MDAs, are fully aware of the hardship occasioned by the high cost of food items in our country.”.

The entire drama is to sell the impression that the government is working hard, for which it deserves a good measure of gratitude from the people. But that is where it ends. Everything is a farce, in fact, a charade, or, as better explained in street lingo,’ movement without motion’ or ‘the more you look, the less you see’. A mumbo-jumbo arrangement of sorts! Take your eyes off the white lies by government officials, and you are confronted with the stark realities of the day. Nigerians are hungry. And acutely so!

According to the Igbo, the blind can only be deceived by the presence of oil in a meal, not by its salt content. It is up to the tongue to decipher this. The facts are always clear.

Have you noticed that almost all of the failed sections of internal roads in major cities are being occupied by a colony of women, some with children, begging for money or food? In Lagos, sordid sightings have become the norm. But there is another disturbing aspect to the trend: men gathering in clusters and brandishing banners with inscriptions like “Ebin pa wa,” which, according to a friend with a better understanding of Yoruba, translates to “we are very hungry.”

Various bands of beggars are becoming more common in the East, especially at motor parks. Until recently, such scenarios were uncommon in the country’s southern regions. However, no section is spared from embarrassment. The out-of-school syndrome, which was previously associated with certain parts of the country, is now spreading throughout the states. Poverty and hunger have become unifying factors for Nigerians. In any system where such a situation exists, danger lurks.

In 2022, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) designated 133 million Nigerians as multidimensionally poor. The figure represented 63% of the nation’s population. The poverty rate varied from 27% in Ondo to 91% in Sokoto. According to the report, more than half of the poor used dung, wood, or charcoal instead of cleaner energy.

The situation must have deteriorated further as a result of increased insecurity, the abrupt removal of petroleum product subsidies, and the merger of the foreign exchange market, which is responsible for the naira’s free fall.

President Tinubu’s two policies, the removal of fuel subsidies and the floating of the naira, increased basic food prices, with 50 kg of rice rising from around N30,000 to more than N90,000 between 2023 and 2024. According to the most recent estimates, the country’s food inflation rate was 40.66 per cent. This is neither sustainable nor acceptable.

Something must give in before people lose faith in the system and turn to self-help. Kenya’s uncertain developments must cause the government to consider its options. It must be reiterated that the purpose of government is to provide welfare and security to people and their property. Any government that fails to perform this basic function cannot claim legitimacy.

This is why the government’s advertised 150-day duty-free window for importing food items must be accompanied by appropriate actions. The offer includes a suspension of duties, tariffs, and taxes on certain food commodities imported through land and sea borders. The commodities shown in the window are maize, husked brown rice, wheat, and cowpeas. Under the agreement, imported food commodities will be subject to a suggested retail price.

Furthermore, the agriculture minister stated that the federal government will import 250,000 metric tonnes of wheat and 250,000 metric tonnes of maize. The imported food commodities in their semi-processed state will be distributed to small-scale processors and millers throughout the country.”

On the surface, this appears to be a positive piece of news. It is a pronouncement that, if faithfully implemented, will go a long way towards increasing food availability and lowering prices, subject to the foreign exchange regime. It simply means that the commodities covered by the window can be imported into the country through the sea and land borders without difficulty.

Let the government ensure that this policy is carried out. The problem with the APC and its administration is that they lie about everything and make propaganda out of it. It is not a government whose pronouncements can be trusted.

From the deceptive Muhammadu Buhari administration to the present dubious Tinubu era, the APC-led government has lived a life of lies and denials, pooling the wool over the eyes of the people and shifting blame to the next person.

Starting with its touted conditional cash-transfer initiative to the multiple bogus palliative packages, none has been pushed through convincingly. That is the fear many have with the 150-day duty-free window on basic staples. That, by extension, explains why the end may not be in sight in Tinubu’s Republic of Hunger.

• DURU is the Editor, TheNiche Newspapers, Lagos (08054103327, nwaukpala@yahoo.com)