By Alabi Williams | 05 August 2024
There’s a lot of work for government to do, in terms of engaging young people, like the hundreds who came out to protest against hunger and bad governance. Those that protested are just a fraction of Nigerians who are angry and hungry. Millions did not join physically, but they voted for it in their hearts. Many gave in to the threats and intimidation by the military the Police. Government worked very hard to suppress the disjointed protests in several places. They tried, but they only postponed judgment day.
The fury and unexpected numbers from northern states took the day and that should bother government and agencies of development. The Department of State Security (DSS,) that is quick to see visions of political enemies did not see images of angry Arewa boys in their partisan radar. They misled government and left the sensitive northern flank poorly profiled. Maybe government took for granted that their governors and traditional rulers had been sufficiently briefed and resourced to rein in protesters. Many have related the response from the North to political underpinnings. They may be correct, but hunger is not partisan.
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The real issue is that here is hunger in the land. This hunger does not know tribe, region or religion. In fact, hunger might be hasher in remote and faraway places from the coast, where extra logistics is required to deliver goods and services. The policies of government have inflicted untold hardship on the people and that’s a fact.
Living for Nigerians that are outside government has taken a dramatic turn since May 29, 2023, when the Tinubu administration came on board.
Apart from mishandling the economy, failure to communicate policies and apply feedback from the people is characteristic of this government. Northern leaders had communicated through different platforms that the policies of government were hurting their people. Emir Aminu Ado Bayero of Kano, had to send the wife of the President, Remi Tinubu, to tell her husband that Kano people were hungry. That piece of intelligence, as brash as it seemed, appeared lost on government, just the way they have discounted every contrary opinion. But when they needed votes, they went round and made promises. Some people don’t forget.
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Lessons from the protests. There is an army of young people that are outside the loop of governmental activities and they will be available to hit the streets if authorities continue to disregard them, whether they are politically motivated or not. The number of out-of-school young people in the country is frightening, if the estimates are of any concern to government.
Back in 2017, Global Citizen ranked Nigeria as having the highest number of out-of-school children in the world, 10.5 million of them. Most of them are said to be girls, having the natural tendency to multiply poverty and lack if not empowered. UNICEF in May 2024 said one in every five of the world’s out-of-school children is in Nigeria. The number is now 18.3 million, according to Dr. Tushar Rane, UNICEF’s Chief of Bauchi Field, at a stakeholders’ engagement meeting in Gombe.
In addition to out-of-school numbers, a significant part of Nigeria’s 200 million plus population is not productive. At a time, before the rebasing of unemployment statistics by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), in 2023, 23 million Nigerians were reported to be unemployed. Of those employed, 34.3 per cent of them are reported to be poor and unable to break even because they are engaged in low-skilled, low-wage jobs, according to an African Development Bank (AFDB) 2023 report.
Without education, skills and employment, thousands of young people are out there, scavenging for a living, doing menial jobs or doing one criminal activity or the other. Some of these are the people the Police and elected authorities refer to as hoodlums. Government is afraid hoodlums will infiltrate and takeover hunger protests but have refused to admit that hoodlums exist because of the gaps in the governance system. Instead of doing more than pay lip-service to issues of young people, government is busy shifting the day of recompense. That day has come.
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When Senator Ali Ndume raised the alarm over the impending food crisis and warned that despite propaganda, the food reserves owned by government across the country were indeed empty, their political party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), took umbrage at him and demoted him. It didn’t take long for Ndume to be proved right. Sadly, his state, Borno, recorded casualties.
Going forward, government needs to urgently prioritise food production and redirect youthful energies that are available for riotous activities to the farms. Government has to first make the farms safe and demobilise terrorists who have taken over farmlands in the North. It will not be easy to convince young people to engage in farmwork; government however, has no choice but to mount serious orientation programmes for that to happen in a sustainable manner.
Orientation agencies and information departments of government need to quickly defrost their fixation on propaganda as the only tool to market activities and failures of government. So far, they have misappropriated every opportunity to represent their employers, as avenue to attack members of the opposition and the media.
That has not helped the government. They have instead, succeeded to alienate government from the people. They need to come out of their comfort zones to go on road-shows, visit schools and vocation centres, NURTW parks across the country and under bridges in Lagos and elsewhere, to propagate the importance of agriculture.
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This is the time for states to embark on massive agriculture projects, with reasonable timelines on when harvested products are to arrive markets. They should stop the fake display of imported tractors and equipment in the media, to gain fleeting attention, while the Federal Government is importing rice with scarce forex.
In March this year, President Tinubu commissioned what was touted to be a multi-billion-naira agro-processing zone and airport project in Minna, Niger State. On display were 5,000 pieces of agriculture equipment sitting on 2,000 hectares of land for production of assorted food and livestock. The project, from Governor Mohammed Umar Bago’s explanation is quite ambitious and promising.
Highly commendable, but that was five months ago. Niger State citizens must be eager to taste the first fruits of that gargantuan project and it shouldn’t take eternity for that to happen. It takes around three months for rice to be ready for harvest, for example.
It is the same story across the states, of governments making a lot of noise about agriculture but the proceeds don’t reflect in their Internally Generated Revenue (IGR). Many states in Nigeria have bigger land mass than Thailand, which used to be a popular destination for rice imports. Unfortunately, many states have nothing to offer, apart from propaganda. States that make the loudest noise on agriculture have higher food inflation rates.
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In response to the hunger protests, the Federal Government has promised to push 10 trucks of rice to each of the 36 states for sale at N40,000 per 50kg pack. The minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, delivered the good news. According to him, “in the first instance, about 10 trucks have been made available to each of the states; indeed, this is just the beginning.”
There was no explanation regarding where the rice is coming from, but what is clear is that local capacity for rice production is not a matter of urgent concern. President Tinubu had on different occasions since August 2023 allocated several billions for cultivation of rice and other grains. Each time the President announced the allocations, government will rush to drain the nation’s strategic food reserves, while food inflation rate goes up. Hopefully, since the government has decided to go for importation, let’s pray the witches that eat up the billions of naira allocated for agriculture will not show up at the ports.
It is however a big shame that the giant of Africa imports all manner of food from smaller countries. Nigeria’s Foreign Reserve is not robust, straining it to import rice will only have short-term impact on the hunger in the land while boosting other countries’ economies and providing jobs for their citizens. This is self-inflicted because Nigeria has good arable land and has a vibrant youth population that is not engaged and mobilised for production.
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The story was told about “Nigeria’s economic mess: Sins of omission of the past catching up with us” by chief Olusegun Osunkeye, accomplished industry captain and former chairman of Nestle. The entire interview carried in a national newspaper is fascinating. The aspect on what used to be Nestle Farms is a good lesson on what happened to Nigeria’s once thriving agro-industry.
According to him, company needed to source local raw materials for backward integration. It established a farm somewhere around Abuja and encouraged farm hands to stay, with training and other incentives. But they refused to stay. At the end of the day, the farm had to be sold because of costs. However, Nestle trained individual farmers with whom the company enjoys an offtake contract, which has sustained the raw material needs till date.
Government has more resources than Nestle to sustain farmers and make them comfortable and safe. But the will power is absent because of cheap revenue from crude oil. The hunger protests of last week have again shown that crude oil is no longer enough to engage and sustain the largest population of youths in the world.
About 70 per cent of Nigeria’s population is said to be under 30 and 42 per cent under 15. Many of the protesters are barely 15 years, especially in the North, with scant understanding of the real issues that took them to the streets.
This is the time to engage and utilise their energies.
Government must not wait for the next hunger protests. Go back to the land!
Note: This article was first published by The Guardian Newspaper.
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