- How To Combat Hardship In Coming Year —Stakeholders
BY AWELE OGBOGU
The end of every year is usually seen by many Nigerians as the period of “cross-over”, but one thing that many would not want to be part of this solemn cross-over is hunger, which almost single-handedly shaped 2024, bringing the year to a near tragic end with food stampedes by people who wanted to survive at all costs.
Although pockets of other events signposted the year 2024, their remote causes could indeed, be traced to the hardship and frustration among the citizenry, such as protests and rising wave of insecurity and social turmoil.
Hunger was the talking point of Nigerians in the outgoing year. For instance, among a number of respondents who spoke to The Pointer, Mrs. Aisha Danladi, a Northerner who lives in Asaba, Delta State capital, put it tersely, lamenting that “my six children have emaciated terribly. I cannot breastfeed my new-born baby because I don’t produce breast milk. It has affected her growth compared to other children.” She revealed that her husband is only an itinerant shoe-maker and there is little they could do to provide better meals for the children, with soaring food prices.
Aisha is not alone in this predicament. The Pointer investigations revealed that about 31.8 million people were estimated to be facing acute food insecurity. Next year, it’s predicted that 33 million people in Nigeria will not know where their next meal will come from, including over 16 million children. Hunger has risen sharply in Nigeria in recent years, up from about 7% of the population, as analysed by the UN.
The situation is particularly dire in those parts of the country where ongoing conflict and insecurity are driving displacement and disrupting livelihoods. With a population of about 230 million, it was gathered that Nigeria has become more vulnerable to hunger with the sudden fuel subsidy removal that disrupted markets across myriad sectors of the economy, particularly transportation and the real sector (producers of goods and services) and the associated hike in prices. 2024 also saw a decline in people’s ability to grow food due to growing unfriendly atmosphere in the agric sector, such as high cost of farm inputs. In the poultry sub-sector, this could be seen in the inability of many poultry farmers to afford feeds, leading to high cost of Christmas chicken.
Mr. Henry Onowakpo, a child rights campaigner in Delta State said “I am so worried about how food insecurity is hitting children across the country. With banditry, farmers cannot go to their farms, so food is getting harder to find. Lots of people go to bed hungry and malnutrition is getting worse, leaving children tired and unable to concentrate in school. We need the FG to take urgent action, restore security and help us get the support we need so every child can grow up safe, well-fed, and healthy.”
“In Nigeria, the crisis is reaching unprecedented levels as catastrophic climate disasters, escalating insecurity, and soaring prices threaten to leave over 16 million hungry. Urgent action is essential to combat this devastating and unacceptable trend of child hunger and malnutrition and ensure a brighter future for all.”
Onowakpo called on governments to address food insecurity by tackling food shortages, stabilize rising prices and increase protection for farmers facing violence from armed groups. Governments also need to address the climate crisis by building communities’ resilience, as well as more awareness and early warning for people to prepare for climate induced disasters.
At the same time, a group, Save the Children said it has been working in Nigeria since 2001 and has been responding to the humanitarian crisis since 2014. Save the Children is providing food, clean water, nutrition and protection services, sexual and reproductive health care, and education to families across Nigeria. Save the Children also provides technical support to the government on policy changes and reforms, especially in critical sectors such as health, education, and social protection.
That did not stop the end of 2024 from witnessing widespread food stampedes that led to the untimely death of many Nigerians, including children. It was seen as the ugly testament of the alarming level of misery, poverty, hunger, starvation and sense of hopelessness faced by the people.
Recall that Debo Ologuagba, PDP national publicity secretary, in a statement, said the party viewed the ugly incident as “a reflection of the people’s level of desperation for survival currently plaguing the nation under the overtly insensitive, corrupt and rudderless Tinubu-led All Progressives Congress (APC) government”.
The tragic stampedes first occurred at private events in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, followed by that of Okija, in Anambra State, as well as the FCT, Abuja. No fewer than 60 were confirmed dead, as vulnerable citizens, including children were rushing to access free food in their desperate struggle to tackle the pervasive hunger in the land occasioned by the harsh economic policies of the APC administration.
The PDP said it is “devastating that the APC-led administration has wrecked our once thriving economy and pushed millions of Nigerians deeper into abject poverty and hunger with many citizens, not being able to afford daily meals, now resorting to suicide and desperate measures, including slave missions abroad and fighting for crumbs for survival. “It is heartbreaking that despite our abundant resources as a nation, Nigerians have been subjected to agonizing life where they die struggling for food”.
Recent reports have indicated that the high rate of inflation has made essential commodities inaccessible to millions of Nigerians.
According to the PDP, “This horrifying situation in the country further confirms the APC as a party of “political vampires and buccaneers” who have no iota of regard for human life but rather derive pleasure in the suffering and death of citizens, including innocent children.
“Only this explains why the APC administration continues in arrogant false performance claims, including empty assurances of food sufficiency while deliberately failing to make the required investments to boost the productive sector, particularly in agriculture and food production.
“This also explains why the APC administration has rejected all advice and suggestions by the PDP and other well-meaning Nigerians to review the hasty implementation of the suffocating policies of abrupt increase in the price of petroleum products and the floating of the Naira, despite the crippling consequences on the productive sector and life-discounting effect on the citizenry.” The party also accused the APC leaders of engaging “in massive looting through direct pillaging of government vaults, budget padding, contract inflation, oil subsidy scam, palliative racketeering and phony programmes which have no benefit to the lives of the citizens, instead of using the resources for the benefits of the citizens.
The PDP called on Nigerians to hold the Tinubu-led APC administration responsible for the remote cause of these tragic occurrences for which it must offer recompense. “Our Party insists that any administration that is sensitive and cares for the people would have since introduced intervention programmes to ease the suffering and improve on the welfare of the masses which is the primary purpose of government.” The party also called on the government to immediately review all the “suffocating economic and tax policies of the APC administration which are bringing misery and death to Nigerians daily.”
The party, while commiserating with Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State and the people over the death of the children at the private event which has brought agony and pain to many families and the people of Oyo State, also commended the Governor for his rapid response in swiftly moving the victims to hospitals for immediate medical assistance which helped to save many lives. The party also condoled with the families of the victims of the Anambra State and Abuja food stampedes, while calling for an investigation into the immediate cause of the three tragic incidents, so as to prevent such a sad occurrence in the future.
These incidences were so serious that they made others look like jokes as the country navigates the complex intersections of governance and power, reflecting on incidents that have caught significant attention in 2024.
This one could serve as side attraction- the Wike-Fubara fallout in Rivers State. It has been a boiling incident since 2023 — although tension lessened in the last quarter of 2024. Less than seven months after Wike got his godson and former accountant general of Rivers State to succeed him, Nyesom Wike, Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), is realising that the ‘sheepish loyalty’ he expected from Governor Siminalayi Fubara has all but faded into thin air. Having been sworn-in as the governor, Fubara wants to be left alone to implement his ‘Rivers First’ mantra. But Wike claims the governor is destroying the political structure he (Wike) built over the years with ‘hardwork’. With the rift degenerating once again in 2024, local government secretariats were burnt and the presidential intervention proved futile.
2024 saw the sack of ministers in October, President Tinubu sacked six ministers and appointed seven new ones. The president also re-assigned 10 ministers to new positions. The good, old ministry of sports was scrapped amidst applause from numerous quarters, but its replacement with another old wine, the National Sports Commission was greeted with pessimism.
2024 saw the Kano election judgment In January, where the Supreme Court upheld the election of Kano State governor, Yusuf Abba Kabir of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP). The court, in a much-followed judgment on Friday, January 12, held that the appeal by Yusuf and his party was meritorious. Justice John Okoro, who read the lead judgment, set aside the judgment of the court of appeal and that of the election tribunal that had sacked the NNPP candidate.
The 2024 Edo gubernatorial election took place on Saturday, September 21, to elect the governor of the state. PDP’s Godwin Obaseki was ineligible to contest for re-election, having already served two terms as allowed by the constitution of Nigeria. The APC candidate, Senator Monday Okpebholo, was declared the winner of the election by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on September 22, 2024. Okpebholo won with a total of 291,667 votes, defeating the PDP candidate, Asue Ighodalo, who garnered 247,274 votes, and the Labour Party (LP) candidate, Olumide Akpata, who came third with 22,763 votes. Okpebholo’s victory came as a surprise for most people and questions have sprung up about the legitimacy of that mandate, which is expected to be decided in the tribunals and courts in the coming months, as well as the 2024 Ondo governorship election conducted on Saturday, November 16. Incumbent APC governor, Lucky Aiyedatiwa ran for election for a full term and won with over 366,000 votes, defeating former deputy governor in the person of Agboola Ajayi of the PDP who came second with 117,000 votes, and 15 other candidates. Aiyedatiwa was the former deputy governor who became governor after the death of Governor Rotimi Akeredolu in December 2023. The PDP has since denounced the polls.
But notable among incidents that would not be forgotten in a hurry was The End Bad Governance protests, widely known by the hashtags #EndBadGovernance or #EndBadGovernanceInNigeria, a series of decentralized mass protests that mainly occurred from 1 August to 10 August 2024, triggered by the rising cost of living in the country.
The demonstrations escalated on 1 August 2024, when a once peaceful protest turned violent after Nigerian security agencies attempted to quell them. The End Bad Governance protests stemmed from Nigeria’s growing economic hardship and hunger, which BBC reporter, Simi Jolaoso described as the “worst economic crisis in a generation”, due to record inflation, especially on food prices. Some experts have linked the crisis to the execution of economic reforms, particularly the removal of fuel subsidies and the devaluation of the Naira following the removal of its peg to the US dollar, under president Bola Tinubu designed to liberalise the Nigerian economy and attract foreign investment.
Various members of the government, including Tinubu himself, have attempted to dissuade protests, with some measures to financially support young people being announced.
Protests began on 29 July 2024 as demonstrators were seen on the streets displaying placards with messages like “Enough is Enough”, “Stop Anti-Masses Policies”, “We Are Not Slaves In Our Country”, “Hardship Is Unbearable” and “Fuel Subsidy Must Be Back”.
On 1 August being the first day of the protests, there was the bid to disperse the protesters across Nigeria. Jide Oyekunle, a photo journalist with the Daily Independent Newspaper, was said to have been arrested and detained by police while reporting on the protests at Eagle Square in Abuja. Amnesty International released a damning report, but the Police described it as untrue.
Also, Simon Ekpa, so-called prime minister of the Biafra Republic Government in Exile (BRGIE), took his acts a notch higher. He made increasing efforts to mobilize people in the South East and became more daring. Ekpa claimed he was responsible for Ibos not taking part in the protests, attributing it to his rising influence. Simon Ekpa criticized Works Minister, Dave Umahi, for claiming that South-East governors were responsible for the non-participation in the protests. Ekpa argued that the people of the South-East chose not to join the protests due to their own decisions and resistance against certain government actions, not because of the influence of the governors
With all that behind, many wanted to know what plans are in store to make 2025 a better year. President Bola Tinubu has offered answers.
“The 2025 Budget reflects our administration’s unshakable commitment to stabilising our economy, improving lives, and paving the way for a brighter future for every Nigerian.
“The time for lamentation is over. This is the time to act, to support and promote greater investment in the private sector. The time for every Nigerian to look hopefully towards a brighter future because a new day has dawned for us as a nation. Together, we have embarked on a journey of transformation and reform and while the road has not been easy, the progress we’ve made is undeniable.
“We have witnessed economic growth of 3.46% in Q3 2024, up from 2.54% in Q3 2023. Our foreign reserves now stand at $42 billion, providing robust economic security and we now have a trade surplus of ₦5.8 trillion, reflecting the resilience of our policies. The 2025 Budget is ambitious but necessary and we have earmarked record allocations in some key areas: ₦4.91 trillion for Defense and Security, ₦4.06 trillion for Infrastructure, ₦3.52 trillion for Education, ₦2.48 trillion for Health. We are building a Nigeria where peace reigns, opportunities abound and every citizen can dream, work and thrive in safety. Let us move forward, not as individuals but as one united nation, determined to rewrite our story for the generations to come.”
He has spoken once again, but as the saying goes, the ball is now in the President’s court.
