BY BENSON OKOBI-ALLANAH
I watched with unconcealed concern as a couple with their four children travelling together to their village, stopped at Ore in Ondo State, a stopover town to have some refreshments like other passengers on board the GUO Motors (18 capacity passenger bus) they were all travelling in.
What was the refreshment? Two short cucumber and groundnut in six cellophane pack one can, without stress, count the seeds in them.
The way they were eating the cucumber and groundnut showed they were obviously hungry. The things they were greedily eating would obviously not have been enough or the solution to the tearing hunger that was visibly showing all over them. But then, their pocket detected otherwise.
Something that happened in their village that required their presence was taking them home in the eastern part of the country as this writer later got to know through his investigation.
Out of sheer inquisitiveness, I decided to find out, even when I already know that it was the biting hunger in the country, and not having money to take what would have been more satisfying to the family of six that made them settle down for what they could afford.
Just before other passengers on board the vehicle could start coming out from the eateries, they went in to eat, I had a brief chat with the man who told me they were travelling to Ohiazu in Imo State to attend the burial ceremony of his mother-in-law.
In what looked like a hold no bare chat, the man told this reporter he was travelling to bury her mother -in-law even as they had no money to register their presence at the burial properly.
He said it was even because of shame they came down from the vehicle just like other passengers for refreshment let it not look as if they were advertising their poverty.
‘’If not for the children, my wife and I would have endured the hunger in us until we get to the village as we are trying to economize the little money, I have on me. The burial we are going for from Lagos to the village, is money involving I must let you know. But if it is not something that have to do with my mother-in-law, I bet you, I would not have embarked on this trip. I know our enemies are only going home to us their laughing stock of the village. But what do I do? Nothing going at all will make things worse.’’
This reporter still observed that half of the passengers were just lurking around the several eateries looking for short cuts to feed their stomachs like what the travelling couple with their children did, buying only those things they felt the money they had in their pockets could fetch them. Some could not even buy the least costly item there as they had no money on them except for their transport fares they would use as soon as they get to the general disembarkation point before heading to their various destinations.
Many Nigerians are not actually feeding. Until our leaders find it expedient to proffer solution to the current famine bestriding the nation like a colossus, there is every likelihood that sooner or later, but may God forbid it, many citizens of this country called Nigeria, will be dropping dead on the roads as a result of hunger.
Urgent steps should be taken to address this ugly trend to tackle the issue of hunger in the country,V we should not allow tearing hunger we are experiencing to continue.
Many Nigerians are famished, hungry beyond what words could express now.
Many youths have left the country ostensibly to pursue greener pasture in oversea countries, while our farmlands now suffer great snubbing due to the activities of herdsmen and governments insensitivity towards making farming a bit more modern an lucrative, that is, refusing to deliver the nation from its crude method of farming which has to a large extend compounded the neglect in farming.
