Buhari and the plight of the poor
President Muhammadu Buhari rode to power largely, if not wholly, on the crest of popular support by Nigerian masses who saw him as the only source of their hope for a better life. But has the life of the poor in Nigeria shown any tangible signs of improvement two years after Buhari’s ascension to power? The answer is both ‘yes’ and ‘no’! In fact, while the poor (and their treasury) have, on the one hand, been more secure today than they were during the-stealing-is-not-corruption era, they have, on another hand, sunk deeper in to the dark abyss of hunger and poverty
No reasonable person will of course fail to acknowledge the litany of challenges inherited by, or which welcomed, the Buhari administration: Oil price shocks, receding economy, unbridled corruptions, squander-mania, insecurity, weak institutions, decayed infrastructure etc.
But on the economy, which is the third of Buhari’s campaign tripod, it must be stated that this government needs to urgently go back to the drawing board. The economic blueprint they use, if any, is simply not working. The poor Nigerian masses are afflicted by hunger. They are starving. They are suffering. They are writhing in pains from pangs of poverty. Inflation has eaten up their income and brought untold miseries on their lives. Three (3) square meals of nutritionally unbalanced diet are now a luxury affordable only to quite a few families! Poor people are badly groaning, grumbling and wondering if it was truly the Buhari they knew and voted for that is effectively in charge. Voices of complaints from Buhari’s traditional strongholds are growing like viruses and fast turning into a dissent, nay rebellion. This is dispiriting. This is depressing. This is discomforting. This is not a hyperbole, but large proportions of Nigerians find it extremely hard to feed these days; and so they are hungry and angry too!
While there is everything good about this government’s policy to ban rice importation, there is something wrong in the knee-jerk approach thereto. You don’t ban hundreds of thousands of tons of imports of such a staple when you’ve not met the necessary and sufficient conditions at home for domestic farmers to immediately offset the imminent supply-demand disequilibrium to ensue and result in the economic hardship we are in today. Rice (like other crops) farming in Nigeria is still largely practiced at subsistence level using traditional methods and implements! Supports or subsidiesin cash and kind-by federal/state governments to farmers have not been enough to augment local production to the level of meeting domestic demand. So here we are, caught up between the devil and the deep-blue sea; we banned rice imports but we can’t substantially empower our farmers to produce enough rice to feed us in the shortrun or even create prospects for that possibility in the long run.
The way out is for this government to, among other things, urgently see to the increase in minimum wage to a reasonably decent level. And this must be done pretty quickly to arrest further deterioration in living standards and pacify hungry-and-angry Nigerians. Otherwise, water will flow uphill in 2019 to the consternation of this government and consolation of the opposition. In addition, if this government rightly insists on banning rice importation, it must provide real and comprehensive support that trickle down to local farmers. Mechanization must be vigorously pursued if our farmers are to produce enough to meet burgeoning local demand that is in excess of supply. Corrupt middlemen who cut support from reaching local farmers as and when due must be dealt with decisively. Serious effort should be made to reinvigorate and modernize our River Basins Development Authorities (RBDAs). Corruption in our RBDAs that deprives government of huge revenues must be tackled. Payment of lease dues by farmers on our river basins should be done through REMITA. In essence, this government should urgently come all out to fight the pandemic hunger ravaging poor Nigerians like a plague that it is!
Hamisu Hadejia, Lokoja, Kogi State (hamisuhadejia@gmail.com