Speaking at a summit on ‘peaceful coexistence, social cohesion and nation building’, which held in Gombe State, the Sultan of Sokoto, His Royal Majesty, Mohammed Saad Abubakar, pungently articulated the cyclical and mutually reinforcing relationship between hunger, emanating from escalating food prices, and insecurity. In his words, “So many people are hungry because they can’t afford prices which keep going high…Without food, you can’t have peace, without peace, you can’t have security, without security you can’t have development and, without development, you are just a bunch of people sitting down together. Therefore, we must rise up to the occasion, whatever it will cost. A hungry man is an angry man”.
That a prominent member of the elite like the Sultan, who is evidently unlikely to be directly affected by the price of food, no matter how high, is so acutely aware of the impact of excessively high food prices on the vast majority of Nigerians shows how serious the problem is. Even if privileged members of society can afford to comfortably feed themselves and their families, despite high food costs, they will always remain vulnerable to the dangers of living in a society characterised by the attendant high level of insecurity. This is why a quick return to normalcy so that food is available to the majority of citizens at affordable cost is in the interest of all members of the society, whatever social class they belong to.
We thus commend the Sultan for speaking up candidly and courageously, urging that urgent steps be taken to alleviate the pathetic plight of millions of Nigerians who are confronted with the menace of hunger.
The astronomical rise in the prices of such basic food staples as rice, beans, yam, gari, maize and plantains, for instance, is indeed alarming. While the price of beans has risen by over 62 percent, that of rice has gone up by about 15 percent. This is also true of other food staples, including such critical agricultural commodities like pepper, tomatoes, onions, eggs, fish and meat. This situation worsens the level of poverty in the country as the lower the individual’s income level, the higher the percentage of the earnings he or she is likely to expend on food. Not only will the individual’s income be able to purchase severely reduced quantities of food, citizens will have even less to spend on other critical necessities such as education, shelter and healthcare.
If those who are employed are hard hit by the high food prices, we can imagine how much more unbearable the situation will be for the huge population of unemployed Nigerians. The implication of this for the level of insecurity in the country is obvious. According to a 2020 report of the World Bank on poverty in Nigeria, “Food prices accounted for over 60% of the total increase in inflation. Rising prices have pushed an estimated seven million Nigerians below the poverty line in 2020 alone”. It has been widely acknowledged that the current unbearable level of insecurity across the country encompassing terrorism, insurgency, banditry, kidnapping for ransom, herdsmen/farmers clashes, communal and religious conflicts and armed robbery, among others, have been driven and fuelled by pervasive poverty.
With the unceasing escalation of food prices, it is inevitable that poverty and the consequent insecurity can only degenerate further. Already, thousands of farmers and their families, sacked by bandits and terrorists, have taken refuge in Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps in several states. Incessant herders/farmers clashes, resulting in large scale murders and kidnapping of farmers and rape of women have led to a widespread abandonment of the farms. Large acres of arable land are thus rendered idle. The intense military activity against terrorists and bandits has also had negative implications for agricultural productivity in large parts of the country’s food belt.
The high level of insecurity has adversely affected the impact of the Buhari administration’s various fiscal intervention programmes to boost agricultural productivity and reduce the country’s over-dependence on petroleum revenues. For, no matter how much financial and logistics support is given to farmers, it will be of little avail if the latter have to flee their farms to guarantee the safety of their lives. Even where farmers are able to cultivate the land and produce, conveying the farm produce from the rural areas to urban centres has become hazardous as bandits and kidnappers now operate at will on the highways in many parts of the country.
Much more than poor equipment, inadequate mechanisation, vagaries of the weather as a result of climate change, inferior quality of inputs, among others, which have militated against a thriving agricultural sector in Nigeria, the number one challenge that confronts the sector and threatens the country with the danger of mass hunger now is insecurity. It has thus become more imperative than ever before for government to re-invigorate its battle against all forms of insecurity throughout the country in order to more effectively secure lives and property of the citizens, which is the primary responsibility of the state. This is the only way to reduce and stabilise food prices, significantly alleviate poverty and stem any further slide to anarchy.
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