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By Ayo Oyoze Baje
“Nigerians are suffering as a result of ‘palpable hardship’ in the country. The suffering requires the attention and assistance of the governments at both federal and state levels”
– Shehu Idris, (Emir of Zazzau)
With that poignant and timely alarm raised by the Emir of Zazzau as part of his Sallah message, in August 2019, one would have thought that Nigerians would be smiling by now. But are we? The answer is obvious. Incidentally, some two years after that Emir’s statement, precisely on 12th December, 2021, Dr. Zainab Sulaiman, a young Nigerian medical doctor and counselor who bagged a 2-Star Doctor of Science (DSc) award in Child Developmental Science (CDS) had this to say: “Nigeria has been faced with ruinous problems of late, but what posits as the height of it all is the unbearable hike in prices of food commodities. The unbearable cost of food prices has now mutated into a major threat to the efforts of the government in ameliorating humanitarian crisis”. That was point blank!
In fact, as at 2021 Nigeria’s inflation soared to a 4-year high of more than 18% in March of that year. That was according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). The World Bank Report as of April 2021, stated that, “the inflation rate was the highest in four years”, highlighting the issue of food prices, which accounted for over 60 per cent of the total increase in inflation. Succinctly put, Nigeria’s economic growth as at 2021 was “being hindered by food inflation, heightened insecurity, unemployment and stalled reforms”. And the World Poverty Clock reported then that at the latest count, Nigeria had 43 percent of its population, or about 90 million people living below the poverty line of less than $1.90 per day. Let us fast forward to 2022. According to the World Bank report, with the title: “A Better Future for All Nigerians: Nigeria Poverty Assessment (2022)” the factors responsible for this include sluggish economic growth, low human capital and labour market weaknesses. Another significant factor highlighted as arresting Nigeria’s poverty reduction back is the exposure to shocks. With regards to the report, as many as 4 in 10 Nigerians lived below the national poverty line. That was in March 22, 2022. But over a year later, precisely in June 2023, the situation has been worsened by the recent removal of fuel subsidy without appropriate buffers, as cushioning palliatives for the ordinary Nigerians. The pump price of fuel price has skyrocketed from N189 per litre galloping up to N500 per litre! This has snowballed into soaring costs of transportation, food items and other consumables. As at December 2022, the inflation rate was 21.34percent but by January 2023, it rose to 21.82 percent. Yet, it jumped again to 22.22 per cent in March, 2023 and 22.04 as at April, 2023. That is according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
Not left out of the scary poverty conundrum is the proposed introduction of tuition fee for federal-government-owned tertiary institutions, including universities, polytechnics, and colleges of education. Despite the President Tinubu-led administration coming up with the Student Loan initiative, many families across the country are still not smiling. One is seriously pained that the type of democracy we currently run has put many more millions of Nigerians deep into what one calls preventable poverty. It would be recalled that in 2021 the then President Muhammadu Buhari during his Speech on Democracy Day claimed that: “In the last two years we lifted 10.5 million people out of poverty – farmers, small-scale traders, artisans, market women and the like”. But the World Bank refuted his statement with empirical evidences, barely three days after he made that speech. The important message this brings to the fore is that you can no longer deceive the world in a globalized economy. Making matters worse is that a rise in joblessness has left a third of Nigeria’s workforce unemployed at the end of 2020, according to the NBS. Even those on paid employment are not smiling. For instance, the cost of food items such as rice, beans, banana, yam, cassava have risen astronomically. But as if Nigerians have not suffered enough, and to complicate an already pitiable poverty situation is the worrisome news of the proposed huge hike in electricity tariff, jumping up by 40%. Not unexpectedly, this has sparked off a wave of widespread criticisms from Transparency International (TI), Amnesty International (AI), Civil Society Legislative Council of Nigeria ( CISLAC), Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG) and of course, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC). The question on the lips of informed Nigerians is why the crass corruption and profligacy of the political predators should be visited on the poverty-stricken Nigerians? In fact, there are more!
Why for instance, can President Tinubu not come up with a bill asking for members of the executive, legislature and the judiciary at the federal and state levels to be placed on half-salary structure, in tandem with the crushing economic situation in the country? That is instead of the Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) tinkering with (though denied) the overtly obnoxious idea of a 114% increase in the humungous pay packages of the rich politicians? Why should the rich Nigerians not be made to pay higher taxes, to stabilize the wobbling economy, as the then President of the United States, Barack Obama did when faced with a similar situation, back in 2013? Why should we not go back to the parliamentary system of government with one arm of the legislature, and better still place members on part-time basis to reduce the huge cost of governance?
As for the significant spike in the prices of food stuff in Nigeria, the bitter truth is that it is not caused by middlemen, as former president Buhari wrongly alleged. The causative factors include insecurity with frequent farmer-herders clashes, lack of training in modern farming methods for the rural farmers, especially organic farming. Others include lack of incentives such as single-digit interest loans for farmers and access to hybrid, early-maturing, disease-resistant seedlings with bumper harvest. Another factor is corruption in high places. According to the National President of All Farmers Progressive Association, Ogbo Joseph Douglas, only 20 per cent of the federal government credit loans get to the farmers, while the remaining 80 per cent always end up in private pockets! This is another area for President Tinubu to investigate. Also, Mister President should allow for retooling of the 1999 constitution for political restructuring and full fiscal federalism, as the APC promised Nigerians back in 2015.
Doing so means giving ample room for the states to control their resources, buoyed by community policing. These will certainly boost local production of raw food items as the defunct Northern Region boasted of cotton, groundnut, hides and skin in the ‘60s. Back then the Western Region survived with revenues from cocoa and coffee and the East boasted of rubber, fish and the root crops. Also, individuals should engage more in home gardening to grow hybrid seedlings. More people show join government-certified farms such as Xtra Large Farms to invest in farming from home and enjoy juicy packages on monthly basis.
Without these government interventions taken, as advised by the Emir of Zazzau, an #EndHunger protest could be triggered that would be worse than #EndSars, as Douglas rightly advised.
Baje writes from Lagos
