As the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) felicitates with the Muslim Ummah in Nigeria on the occasion of Eid-el-Kabir celebrations, it noted with great concern the increasing challenges of hunger and insecurity bedevilling the country.

In a statement at the weekend by the ACF National Publicity Secretary, Prof. Tukur Muhammad-Baba, the event was a solemn reminder of the need for humanity?s values of sacrifice, fellowship, and devotion in appreciation of Almighty God?s benevolence, amid the neglect of the people who are subjected to socio-economic hardship by the government of the day.

?The celebrations are coming amid struggles under economic-cum-existential challenges, ranging from dire costs of living expenses, inflation, rapid deterioration in the value of wages and salaries, etc. These are in addition to the tough experiences of insurgency, terrorism, and banditry in several locations but more acutely in the Northern states.

?These experiences may not be new. It is, however, disturbing that public policy responses to them have remained ineffective, even as profligacy and reckless expenditures by public officials are in contrast to sacrifices by citizens.

?A most perverse illustration of reckless profligacy of public expenditure has been the revelation about insertions, in the 2025 Federal budget, for the provision of streetlights at a staggering and unimaginable cost of over N260 million Naira each. That there has to date been no official denial of such crassly reckless and surreal insertions attests to the insensitivity of public officials and political representatives to the plight of ordinary Nigerians, whose living conditions continue to deteriorate all round (insufficiencies in or escalating costs of food, energy, health, educational opportunities, transportation, water supply, weak Naira, etc.). Going by precedence, such budgetary insertions are replicated in various ways at state level.

?As ACF observed a year ago, the existential challenges above are symptomatic of a fundamental malaise in the political economy, calling for urgent public policy attention. Disappointingly, it would seem to be the case that the ruling party at the centre is more obsessed with unprecedented early campaigns, defections to it, and other manoeuvres for re-election in 2027, amidst putative celebrations of mid-term policy successes. Delusional hubris and head-in-the-sand claims continue to characterise pronouncements by officials charged with responsibilities for security, in contrast to cries of state governors on the ground in locations.

?Such obsessions and claims only ignore or turn a blind eye to possible mass disillusionment, despair, discontent, hopelessness, and angst of the populace. That Nigerians continue to endure and could even celebrate occasions such as the Eid is a telling testament to their admirable resilience, which ought not to be taken for granted.

?ACF praises Nigerians for such resilience. ACF asserts that national challenges enumerated above can be overcome by the entrenchment of the principles of good governance in public officials at local, state, and federal levels.

?ACF calls for continued prayers for Nigeria such that a peaceful, secure, vibrant, and prosperous country can be achieved; all should continue to support Nigeria?s security agencies for their efforts in fighting criminality,? the statement said. (Sunday Sun)

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