Nigerians are no strangers to hunger. In many ways, the stomach siren has been an existential companion for many Nigerians, especially since the country faltered and frittered away the great promise it showed at independence. It has not always been hunger for food, anyway.
There has been a real hunger across Nigeria for good governance, security, dividends of democracy and economic development. This hunger has largely been unmet for many years leading to a catastrophic loss of face for those who have ruled Nigeria and for Nigerian institutions as whole.
In the past few years, hunger has taken an even more forceful form for Nigerians. It has manifested as hunger as they know it. Some years ago, as a governor in one of the Southwest states did his second term in office which was in reality a government by touts and threats, he popularized the phrase” stomach infrastructure” both to show what truly mattered to many Nigerians and emphasise what hunger had truly done to the psyche and physique of Nigerians.
Hunger is arguably the most significant symbol of poverty, the kind that scars millions of Nigerians to no end. When cupboards and tables are bare, the stomach is even barer. In the face of such lack, hungry men truly become angry men with hunger and the desperate need to conquer it the overriding consideration for many people. People will do anything to conquer hunger, People have been known to take drastic decision to escape hunger.
The last few years have witnessed a sharp increase in hunger in parts of the country due to conflict. As various drivers of conflict have had a field day in many parts of Northern Nigeria, hunger has soared, cutting off access to food for many families. In many instances, farmers have been killed or displaced from their ancestral lands. Many of them who cultivate and plant under great danger and duress have to hand over entire harvests to criminals as extortionate taxes.
A World Food Programme (WFP) Nigeria Situation Report has highlighted the size of the problem Africa’s largest country has on its hands. According to the report, 11 million people across six states in northeast and northwest Nigeria face acute food insecurity in 2025.
These eleven million people include men, women, and children whom hunger has left on the brink. Among Nigeria’s hungriest, children are the most endangered. Their tender years and bodies make them most susceptible and vulnerable to hunger and malnutrition, which wastes little time in opening the gate to many killer childhood diseases.
Tackling the kind of acute hunger that reduces life to bare bones and strips people of their dignity and well-being should be treated as an emergency. But beyond being an emergency, it must be considered a fight to secure the health, well-being and ultimately, the future of countless children who are suffering gravely from hunger and its many side effects.
It is an atrocious aberration that hunger rages so powerfully in a country and a world spoilt for resources.
Knowing the devastating weapon that hunger is, there is little doubt that this debilitating condition is being weaponized by criminals who continue to drive Nigeria’s many ceaseless conflicts. Putting them out of business will go a long way in arresting hunger.
Ike Willie-Nwobu
