The continuous rise in the cost of living amid widespread poverty is forcing some residents in the North to break into warehouses, and farms and waylay trucks in desperate search of food, writes GODWIN ISENYO
Mallam Musa Jatau was about to enter his farm at Kurmin-Gwari, in the Kakuri area of Kaduna, when he suddenly changed his mind after spotting footprints. indicating that his farm had been invaded.
But as an ex-serviceman, he braced up, cocked his dane gun, and entered the farm. To his chagrin, Jatau was face-to-face with a thief caught in the act, harvesting maize and eating it raw.
The thief, who later identified himself as Danny, begged the visibly angry farmer to spare his life and hear him out. Danny confessed not to having eaten since the previous day. Moved to empathy, Jatau told him to harvest more maize for his family at home.
Checks by our correspondent showed that the removal of the fuel subsidy by President Bola Tinubu on May 29, 2023, has continued to take its toll on Nigerians across the country. This is worsened by the falling value of the naira against the United States dollar.
Nigerians in the North and other parts of the country are daily grappling with the unending rise in the prices of goods and services, a development that has triggered protests by angry and hungry citizens in different parts of the country, including Niger, Kano, Oyo, Ondo and Lagos states.
Several weeks ago, angry youths and women took to the streets of Minna, the Niger State capital, and Kano to protest the rising cost of living in the country and their inability to meet their needs and those of their families.
In Niger, a group of women barricaded the ever-busy Minna-Bida Road at the famous Kpakungu Roundabout and called on the Tinubu administration to address the hunger in the land. The mob deflected attempts to quell the protest by security operatives who fired tear gas canisters into the crowd and arrested some of the protesters.
Unable to bear the devastating consequences of the oil subsidy removal and the hike in the prices of food and other essential services, some residents have resorted to swooping on trucks conveying goods and carting away food items.
Several trucks and warehouses, mostly owned by manufacturers and other members of the organised private sector, have come under attack from hoodlums in the wake of the worsening food inflation.
Last week, some youths reportedly stole food items from trucks stuck in traffic along Kaduna Road in the Suleja area of Niger State.
On Sunday, hoodlums attacked a warehouse belonging to the Agricultural and Rural Development Secretariat of the Federal Capital Territory Administration located in the Dei-Dei area of the capital city where rice, grains, and other relief items were looted.
An attempt by another group to steal from a private warehouse in the Idu Industrial Estate, Jabi, Abuja, was foiled by soldiers guarding the facility.
Last Saturday, a truck loaded with spaghetti en route to Kano was hijacked by hoodlums around Dogarawa, along the Zaria -Kano Expressway, and emptied by hungry Nigerians. It was learnt that the driver of the food truck had only parked the vehicle to observe prayers when it was attacked.
This prompted truck drivers, who have been targets of attacks by hoodlums, to threaten to go on strike if the situation persisted.
But speaking to our correspondent shortly after the ugly incident, the state police command’s Public Relations Officer, Mansir Hassan, said policemen had been deployed to the scene of the crime to protect the food truck as well as safeguard the lives of other road users on the road.
Although our correspondent learnt that none of those who partook in the looting had been arrested, the police spokesman said other warehouses across the state had been secured to forestall a recurrence.
Worried by the trend and its impact on security, President Tinubu on Wednesday directed the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, to facilitate the immediate release and distribution of grains to residents to cushion the effect of the economic hardship.
While disclosing this in an emergency meeting with stakeholders and chairmen of the six area councils of the FCT, the Minister of State for the FCT, Dr Mariya Mahmoud, also announced the setup of a committee to carry out the directive within the next two weeks.
“Everybody knows how His Excellency, Mr President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has been going up and down to see how he will cushion the effect of the hardship in the country, especially, particularly the issue of food security. They have been having meetings through the Ministry of Agriculture and finally, we were able to get a lot that we have to distribute for our people, to tell us how Mr President has his people in his heart,” she explained.
The President’s directive came 24 hours after the Federal Government said it had so far intercepted 141 trucks attempting to smuggle grains and other staples to Niger Republic, Chad, Cameroon, and the Central African Republic.
The Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service, Bashir Adeniyi, disclosed that the service had within two weeks arrested about 120 trucks smuggling food items from Nigeria while the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission stopped 21 food trucks from leaving the country on Tuesday.
The CG, who spoke while briefing federal lawmakers on the enforcement of the Presidential directive to curtail food smuggling during the sectoral debate series, said the arrests would drive down the price of food items.
Adeniyi said, “We arrested in two weeks about 120 trucks of food items going out of the country. These are the food items Mr President has asked us to give back to the local markets where the arrests were made. We believe this will drive down the price of food items in these places.”
However, in an interview with Saturday PUNCH, the Secretary-General of the Christian Association of Nigeria in the 19 Northern States and Abuja, Sunday Oibe, said looting foot items from trucks belonging to business owners in the name of hunger and hardship should not justify criminal activities.
Oibe said, “Let me cite one example which is real. I harvested my crops and as the practice was, we left everything on the farm pending the completion of the harvest to bring everything home at once. On getting to the farm a day after, criminals went and carted away the entire harvest and left me with nothing.
“This is not about hardship or hunger because if it were, they should have taken enough and left the rest for the owner of the farm but, no, they took everything away because it was done out of greed and criminality.”
On his part, a former Secretary-General of the an-northern socio-political organisation, Arewa Consultative Forum, Anthony Sani, opined that though times were hard for most Nigerians, the prevailing harsh socio-economic situation was not beyond redemption.
“I know times are hard for most Nigerians, but this is an odd thing to say, especially when regard is paid to the fact that many well-informed people have been saying unemployment, poverty, and ignorance are time bombs.
“For over four decades, no viable actions were taken to prevent the problems.
Now that the time has come and manifests as insurgence, banditry, kidnapping, armed robbery, and lawlessness, it should not surprise anybody, more so that it now transcends national boundaries,” he added.
However, the Northern Elders Forum led by Prof Ango Abdullahi blamed the looting of grains and other food items by desperate citizens as a manifestation of the extreme poverty and deprivation that corruption had created in Nigerian society.
While noting that crime in whatever form should be condemned, it said it was “important for us, as elders, to make a clear distinction between an ordinary citizen stealing to feed his family and the actions of government officials who steal billions of naira of public funds”.
The Director of Publicity and Advocacy of the Northern Elders Forum, Abdul-Azeez Suleiman, said, “Recent examples, such as the case of an accountant-general facing prosecution for the theft of N140bn and ministers being charged with embezzling billions of naira, highlight the rampant corruption and lack of accountability within the government.
“These individuals, who were entrusted with the responsibility of managing public funds, have betrayed the trust of the Nigerian people and must be held accountable for their actions. Corruption has long been a scourge on Nigerian society, with its insidious effects permeating every aspect of the country’s economy and social fabric.”
According to him, one of the most significant consequences of corruption was its role in breeding inflation, degradation, mass deprivation, and widespread anger and frustration among the citizenry.
“This toxic cycle ultimately forces Nigerian citizens to resort to looting grains and other food items wherever they are sighted as a means of survival. Inflation is a direct result of corruption as it undermines the integrity of the economy and distorts market forces,” Suleiman added.
Speaking further, he described the widespread anger and frustration among Nigerians as a direct result of the betrayal of trust by public officials who are meant to serve the interests of the people.
“When corruption is allowed to fester unchecked, it undermines the social contract between the government and the governed, leading to a breakdown in social cohesion and trust. This sense of betrayal and disillusionment can lead to widespread social unrest, as seen in recent protests and demonstrations across the country.
“When people are pushed to the point of starvation and desperation, they will resort to any means necessary to feed themselves and their families. Looting becomes a form of survival instinct in a society where necessities are scarce and inaccessible to the vast majority of the population,” the NEF’s spokesman added.
Meanwhile, a Nigerian civil rights activist based in the United States of America, Smart Madu-Ajaja, warned that the President’s best efforts to fix the country could fail if Nigerians did not work together to take their country back because of the high level of corruption in the system.
He argued that the power blocks holding the Nigerian nation down must be dismantled for Nigeria to be liberated and repositioned for the common good of all.
Similarly, Suleiman said without necessary reforms, the cycle of inflation, degradation, mass deprivation, and widespread anger and frustration could continue to perpetuate the cycle of poverty and despair in Nigeria.
“It is imperative that we hold government officials to a higher standard and demand transparency, integrity, and honesty in their dealings. As elders, we must advocate for good governance and the enforcement of laws that prevent corruption and ensure that those who abuse their power are held accountable,” he said.
However, to guard against future restiveness occasioned by hunger and other forms of economic hardship, a foremost Islamic organisation, the Supreme Council for Shari’ah in Nigeria, appealed to the federal and state governments to establish an expansive social safety net for immediate relief to the most vulnerable in the country during the Ramadan month.
Sheikh Abdurrasheed Hadiyatullah said, “In this regard, we appeal to the federal and state governments, to provide immediate relief and succour to the multitudes of the disadvantaged against the stifling economic hardships.
“In addition, we call on all governments to also consider organising community feeding for them, in as many centres as possible, especially during the time of iftar (preaching).”