A hungry man, they say is an angry man. Many people in the country today struggle to have a meal a day, so it stands to reason that many people are prone to anger. Nerves are on edge and a simple altercation can lead to an eruption. An employer should therefore choose his words when addressing an employee even if salaries are up to date because salaries don’t go that far anymore. Landlord/tenant relationship which is tense at the best of times, has to be better managed now. A trader has to be careful not to bring the frustrations of ‘a bad market’ home. A mother has to exercise restraint when dealing with a petulant child after a fruitless day’s journey in search of food. Even spouses have to manage the bedroom well these days for it to remain a theatre for love and not conflict. In other words, we should avoid bringing a matchbox to our many inflammable surroundings.

The hunger in the land is not only palpable, it is visible. It stares at you with baleful eyes everywhere you go as if you, with your car and clean, starched clothes, are the cause. And because of the discomfort of the poor, those who are financially comfortable have become emotionally and socially uncomfortable. They have been told to avoid certain places at certain times. Even at that, their eyes dart around like those of a partridge, observing sudden movements about them. Yet, how far can they hide when drivers, stewards and office workers, united by gnawing hunger, have become enemies within? But the enemies without are even more menacing since they are capable of turning the hunger in the land to a massive social unrest for purely self-serving purposes. The hungry are willing and angry enough to dare the system. This makes them vulnerable and therefore dangerous since those providing the logistics have different agenda. Among them are those whose feeding bottles have been snatched away by the current policies. Among them are those who hate Tinubu so much that they are prepared to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Speaking of policies, many are blaming the eight month old Tinubu administration for the hunger in the land. That at best is half, or even a quarter of the story. Nigeria has been financially unhealthy for a long while and the last time any leader paid a serious attention to the financial health of the country was during the Obasanjo administration. Successive leaders tended to push the can of hard economic decisions forward preferring to pander more to the social and political interests of individuals than the economic well-being of the country. Followers of Jonathan might not like this, but our crude oil revenue peaked during the early years of his administration. His coordinating Minister advised his government to save for the raining day but it lacked the political will to do so. Borrowing started towards the end of his administration and continued throughout the eight years of the Buhari administration. Most of the borrowed money was used on recurrent expenditure, on inflated contracts, on oil subsidy and on the defense of the Naira, while the rest was simply looted. It got so bad that we sold the future of our country for the indulgencies of the moment. So every luxury item that was coming into the country was virtually backed by borrowed money. We were literally living on borrowed money and borrowed time. It was clearly unsustainable and someone had to put a stop to it sooner than later. Tinubu administration therefore did what its predecessors should have done. It may not have thought through all the consequences because every economic action has its social consequences and it seems to have jumped into the pool at the deep end without testing the waters. Of that, it is guilty. It is also guilty of trying to eat its cake and having it by ignoring the profligacy of the ruling elite which he leads while enunciating policies that will further tighten the belt of the masses. Nigeria needs a more equitable, more egalitarian, more transparent society. The gap between the very rich and the very poor has to be narrowed to stave hunger and social unrest.

Why are Nigerians hungry? The answer on the surface is simple. Nigerians are hungry because there is no food on the table. But the real answer is deeper. Floating the Naira should not have serious implications on food security if we were growing our own food. But we are not. We have been prepping ourselves for hunger for a while because we have been paying lip service to agriculture – including food processing and transportation. The so called farmer/herder clashes have not helped matters since many farms have been abandoned while peasant farmers find themselves in cities or refugee camps. It is farcical and somewhat laughable when northern elites including emir’s finger point concerning the situation in the country. The truth is that their actions and inactions imported insecurity into the country. The mismanaged socio/cultural and economic policies of the north compounded the poverty and food insecurity in the country. More fundamentally however, Nigerians are hungry because we are in denial – we still think we are as rich as we were in the 70s and 80s and nostalgically point at the strength of the Naira to the dollar at the time. We forget the stupendous increase in population over the years and the tragic decrease in industries and industrial activities. We are in denial because it would otherwise affect our overwhelming sense of entitlement. Nigerians want wealth without work and in some cases, without skills – there is a dearth of basic, survival skills among our youths that is worrisome. Every Nigerian wants a slice of the national cake without noticing that the cake has shrunk almost irretrievably. We feel entitled to having champagne and choice wines on our tables at functions. But the truth is that we lost the right to drink champagne a long time ago. A friend called me recently to complain about the customs tariff on tokunbo cars. I simply told him that we didn’t deserve to ride cars since we refused to develop our auto industry. We must now learn to grow our forex or tailor our appetite to homegrown things.

My advice on the current hunger is that all efforts should be made to slake the thirst of the people before it leads to unsavory consequences for the nation bearing in mind that there are people wishing evil for the country. Government can bring the price of basic foodstuffs down in weeks if it has the political will to do so while focusing on the medium and long term solutions to food security. It is said that a nation is not poor if it can feed itself. And Nigeria should be able to feed itself.

•Muyiwa Adetiba is a veteran journalist and publisher. He can be reached via titbits2012@yahoo.com

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