About four deaths reportedly occurred during the Adamawa mayhem, which possibly resulted from police tear-gas canisters and gunshots fired to disperse the hungry and angry crowds.
In an obvious sign of the times, youths in large numbers invaded warehouses belonging to the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) in Adamawa State penultimate week and looted relief materials. The items involved had been stockpiled for distribution to the masses as palliatives in response to the hardship ignited by the removal of subsidy on petrol. The message of these angry youths, misguidedly tagged as hoodlums by government officials, was clear: Enough of hunger in the country.
Bags of rice, gallons of vegetable oil, palm oil, spaghetti, pumping machines and other valuables were carted away from two warehouses. A horrific dimension occurred in the process - attacks on people with machetes, according to a statement by the Chief Press Secretary to the state governor, Humwashi Wonisikou. Besides, private business premises were also broken into and properties looted. This is a serious security breach that should activate surveillance in all the 36 states of the federation, as it may become contagious. A similar action happened in 2020 during the COVID-19 lockdown.
About four deaths reportedly occurred during the Adamawa mayhem, which possibly resulted from police tear-gas canisters and gunshots fired to disperse the hungry and angry crowds. The state Commissioner of Police, Tola Afolabi, said that 80 of the hoodlums have been arrested. These hungry country folks drilled large holes in the walls of the warehouses to gain entrance into them, chanting to the effect that: enough of hunger. The state government, through the Deputy Governor, Kaletapawa Farauta, admitted the "fact that people are hungry and suffering," in her denunciation of the mass theft. The governor, Ahmadu Fintiri, has declared a curfew to curb the potential security threat but needs to do much more to restore normalcy.
Hunger is a toxin, which has sparked several uprisings around the world and given fillip to revolutions. In July 2023, the rising cost of living in Kenya forced citizens to the streets. Tunisia witnessed a deadly revolt in 1984 over the astronomical prices of bread, as the country embraced IMF and World Bank reforms. Over 100 people were killed during that bread riot. Arab regimes learnt lessons from it and responded swiftly during the 2010/11 Arab Spring by reducing the prices of groceries through subsidies. It is quite instructive that the shortage of bread has played historically significant roles in revolutions and mass revolts globally. This includes the 18th Century French Revolution. Therefore, hunger and skyrocketing prices of food items are inimical to national security. No government worth its salt can afford to fail to address cost of living issues.
The Adamawa State incident showed a bolder red flag, but the imperceptiveness of state authorities did not allow them to decode a continuity from an earlier breach that took place in neighbouring Taraba State two weeks prior. Then, a band of hungry youths, including women, had invaded and looted a warehouse holding bags of rice, maize and other food items. They were intrepid because the facility, owned by a former member of the State House of Assembly and the immediate past chairman of Sardauna Local Government Area, was located near the 6 Army Brigade.
To be clear, the current economic situation in Nigeria is so devastating that daily survival is excruciating, especially for those in the lowest crust of the society. A bag of rice that sold for N27,000 in May, before the downward economic spiral worsened with Bola Tinubu's subsidy removal and foreign exchange merger policies, now sells for between N46,000 and N50,000. A previously much cheaper four-litre gallon measurement of gari now costs N1,500 even in rural communities. This is an epic cost of living crisis.
The prices of onions, yam, pepper, noodles, beef and tomato have all hit the roof top. Transportation fare has increased by more than 300 per cent. A typical example is the N30,000 transport fare from Lagos to the South-East, which was previously below N10,000 per person. Yet, salaries remain the same for public sector workers, while thousands of their private sector counterparts have become victims of retrenchments, as many companies are struggling to weather the current economic storm.
Amid the Tinubu government's apparent confusion and wavering over the increase in wages and cash crunch in the states, the surreal drama sparked by youth hunger in Adamawa and Taraba states represents the stirrings of a likely massive catastrophic drift in Nigeria. The Federal Government is aware of the effects of its new economic policies, given the President's directive that 252,000 metric tonnes of grains and fertilisers be released to 50 million households. Nonetheless, the government's intervention appears devoid of any sense of urgency, as many states are yet to receive their share of these palliatives.
Similarly, the government has declared a state of emergency on food security. However, food inflation peaked at 24.82 per cent in May, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). Interestingly, the government has placed all matters of food, water availability and affordability, as essential livelihood items, under the purview of the National Security Council. How well these seeming mitigation plans will pan out in an environment in which neo-liberal economic ethos, undergirded by ostensible market forces, have arguably been unleashed, remains to be seen.
Food availability and affordability are contingent on farmers cultivating their farmland as a critical mass, with valuable cash being available in the pockets of Nigerians to purchase the produces. Many farmers in the North-West, North-Central and North-East are afraid to go to their farms to avoid being kidnapped or killed by bandits or Boko Haram insurgents. These senseless killings have persisted despite the change of guards in service chiefs.
Such critical security challenge has to be dealt with significantly before any rational proposition on food security or availability could be effective. In other words, concessionary capital to farmers and the carving out of 500,000 hectares of land for increased farming in the present circumstances will not cut it.
Undoubtedly, President Tinubu put the cart before the horse with subsidy removal and the merger of the official and parallel forex markets, before thinking of the consequences of both policies and how to handle them. The repercussions appear overwhelming. There cannot be a better testament to this than the logjam in government's negotiation with organised labour, especially on wage review and the rolling out of palliatives to cushion the effects of the new economic policies.
Policy regimen anchored on fits and starts cannot extricate the economy from the abyss that successive bad governance has entombed it. The President tried during last week's national broadcast to sooth frayed nerves by stating that he understood the hardship that Nigerians are presently facing. However, the prognosis is quite ominous: his chosen path is a bare-knuckle act indicative of harder times ahead. However, we beg to differ, alternative pathways out of this logjam exist.
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The pressure on the naira is a function of the scarcity of dollars and upshot of massive crude oil theft, which involves some oil firms. This has denied the federal treasury of over $150 billion in needed income. Recovering these funds will ease the pressure on the naira and improve the lives of Nigerians. When this humongous sum is compared with the measly $34 billion in Nigeria's Foreign Reserve, it is clear that ignoring its recovery and the deleterious activities of oil thieves, as Muhammadu Buhari's government irresponsibly did, bodes ill for the country. It will be criminal negligence for Tinubu's government to toe the Buhari line.
A Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Femi Falana, has written an open letter to the president drawing his attention to the foregoing. As he said of the government recently, "You cannot continue to punish the Nigerian people for the irresponsibility of the ruling class."
This is the point at issue. With youth unemployment at 53 per cent, the second worst globally, Nigeria is indubitably sitting on a keg of gunpowder. It should not be worsened with the ostentatious lifestyle of public office holders, a bloated 48-person cabinet, much more than the minimum of 36 the Constitution prescribes, and the clamour for more jumbo emoluments for underperforming federal lawmakers. We urge President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the Federal Government of Nigeria and all 36 state governors to be wary of the consequences of social action driven by mass hunger.
