By Paul Onomuakpokpo
If there
were ever a time the famed resilience of the average citizen was lent full
expression, it was in the outgoing year. It was a year the citizens were at the
brink of despair over which they are still dangerously hovering on the cusp of
another year. The year was rendered perilous not by insecurity that manifested
through the officially trounced Boko Haram, increasing kidnapping and marauding
herdsmen and their wanton killings. It was rather so by the failure to meet a
basic need of human nature: food. From the east, west, south to the north,
there was the heart-wrenching cry of the citizens for their hunger to be
assuaged. But succour remained elusive.
It was not because the
citizens were not diligent in the outgoing year. What rather provoked the
hunger was an economic environment that was sired by an inept government. The
stark upshot was that jobs were not created. Worse still, the available jobs were
eroded as companies totally shut down or relocated to economically and
politically sane environments for their operations.
Thus, in just one
year, as the National Bureau of Statistics informed us, 1.7 million citizens
lost their jobs. But this could only be a conservative figure since it could
not have included the statistics of the job losses in the informal sector. Even
those who still had their jobs were not better off since inflation rendered
their wages meaningless. With a dollar exchanging for N500, whatever salary a
worker earned could not buy much in an import-driven economy.
The danger of citizens
eating from dustbins in an economically ruined state moved from a hyperbolic
realm to reality. Indeed, with the increase of scavengers, the dustbins were
not even enough. But even such scavenging conferred more dignity than begging.
Stripped of the consciousness of their own dignity, many citizens took to
begging. Emboldened by a combination of hunger and love, some who could not
watch their children die took to stealing to feed them. Typical of this
category of the hungry was the young woman in Lagos
Those who could not tolerate the indignity of scavenging from the dustbins and
begging took their own lives. But there were others who would have committed
suicide too. But they lost their minds before they could contemplate or do
this. Thus, the high number of the mentally deranged in the outgoing year.
Others deployed prostitution as part of their counter-immiseration measures,
while some took to crime. Of course, if the basic need for food was not met,
why talk about the luxury of education? Hence, the high number of school
dropouts in the year.
Yes, amid the hunger,
the efforts of Lagos
