Two recent global reports, the United Nation’s (UN) report on world food security and crisis and the Steve Hanke misery index, both revealed the dismal state of affairs in Nigeria, saying that the country’s citizens belong in the unenviable groups of the world’s hungriest and most miserable people. While Steve Hanke’s misery index classifies Nigeria as the sixth most miserable country in the world based on certain measurable economic indices like unemployment, inflation and bank lending rates, the UN global report says two-thirds of the world’s hungriest people are in eight countries: Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
According to the report: “The worst food crises in 2018, in order of severity, were: Yemen, DRC, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, the Syrian Arab Republic, the Sudan, South Sudan and northern Nigeria. These eight countries accounted for two-thirds of the total number of people facing acute food insecurity, amounting to nearly 72 million people.” Nigeria has belonged in this group of desperate and hungry countries for some years now. Similar reports from the UN in the last few years had always listed Nigeria among the countries facing acute hunger due to the instability occasioned by insurgency in the North-East geopolitical zone and the dwindling aid from donor countries.
It is quite easy to see the obvious connection between hunger and misery. For the most part, these conditions are due to poor, unimaginative and incompetent leadership. President of Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, corroborated this recently when he said while delivering a keynote address at the fourth edition of the Kaduna Economic Investment Summit: “The North must focus on harnessing its massive agricultural potential in terms of production and processing. No region with such high agricultural potential should be this poor.”
It remains to be seen if the admonition will be taken seriously and viable policies executed by the various governments at the state and local levels. Dangote’s claim that the North “which accounts for over 54 per cent of the country’s population and 70 per cent of its landmass, collectively generated only 21 per cent of the total internally generated revenue in 2017” aptly summarises its economic position and contribution to the national wealth. It is also an explanation for the poor estimation of the North in international reckoning.
Of course, things would not have been this horrible if the security challenges in the zone had been reined in. But the prevalent insurgency and banditry have almost obliterated farming, thus aggravating hunger. The damning reports from the UN and Steve Hanke represent the unpalatable but inviolable truth and it would be pointless denying them as the government is wont to do. The government should rather embrace them with the intention to reverse the trend of insecurity and hunger. Truth be told, it is impossible for a people under pervasive terrorism, banditry and killings to settle down to any kind of agrarian life, whether subsistent or commercial. Therefore, the government must renew its commitment to tackling insecurity head on, harnessing the agricultural potential of the North and subsequently increasing the zone’s revenue base. It is possible for Nigeria to relinquish its membership of poor and miserable countries.
