Mr. President And Rising Hunger, Insecurity

 By Yemi Adebowale

Last Tuesday, residents of the Kpansia area of Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, in their hundreds, invaded a warehouse in the locality where the state’s emergency management agency keeps food. The story was that the agency was hoarding the items despite the hunger in the land. So, hundreds of people gleefully entered the place, disarmed the security men and stole food that included bags of rice, beans, garri as well as cartons of noodles and bottle water. Officers of the Bayelsa State’s security outfit, Doo Akpo, were swiftly deployed to the warehouse to deal with the invaders and secure the building. They could not stop the famished trespassers.

Few hours after the looting, the state government raised the alarm that the goods were “expired relief materials” donated by some concerned Nigerians during the 2022 flood in the state, and urged the raiders to return them to avoid harming their health. “These items are unfit for human consumption,” declared the government.  The looters cared less. As at press time, not even a teaspoon of rice had been returned by the starving Nigerians. I guess they are delightedly enjoying the food.

Late in July, hundreds of famished Nigerians were also on the streets of Yola, Adamawa State, looting every store with food. The pillaging of food items in Bayelsa and Adamawa states exemplifies the unending pain in Nigeria largely driven by hunger and insecurity. The removal of the subsidy on petrol by President Bola Tinubu on May 29 compounded the woes of Nigerians. Many more millions of Nigerians are now living below poverty. It is estimated that about 10 million Nigerians (within three months) joined the poverty club after the removal of petrol subsidy.

In his 96 days in office, our president’s responses to the problems he deepened have been abysmal. His biggest drawback is that he is always shooting before thinking. Clearly, Tinubu had no plan on how to manage the tragic effects of petrol subsidy removal. He just removed it and afterward, he started planning how to manage the negative impact on the people. Over three months after, he is still planning. What a leader!

Undoubtedly, the removal of petrol subsidy largely heightened the hunger in our land, with prices of food, goods and services skyrocketing. It also led to massive rise in the cost of transportation. Some spend almost their entire earnings on transportation. Now, majority of Nigerians struggle for a meal a day. Families are in tatters. President Tinubu was only thinking about the financial gains of removing petrol subsidy for his government. He did not think about the huge drawbacks to majority of Nigerians and the economy. The multiplier effect has been massively negative.

The recent homily of the Bishop of Ibadan Diocese, the Most Reverend Joseph Akinfenwa, at the Archbishop Vining Memorial Cathedral Church, Ikeja, Lagos, aptly captures the negative effects of petrol subsidy removal. He said: “The current economic environment has thrown many Nigerians into severe pain despite the promise that it will be for a short time. Even if we say it is temporary, the truth is that people are in severe pain.”

Petrol selling at N630 per litre is beyond the income of most Nigerians. If we have a government that truly wants citizens to breathe, subsidy on petroleum products shouldn’t have been removed. This is so simple to achieve. A large quantity of the petroleum products imported into this country, for which the government pays subsidies, are smuggled to neighbouring countries. There is also huge fraud in the subsidy regime. There was a time the former head of Customs, Hammed Ali, challenged the NNPCL to show how it imports over 70 million litres of petrol into the country daily, without his men at the ports knowing. NNPCL did not respond.

What I expect from a good government that wants citizens to breathe is to block these holes in the petrol subsidy regime and also block the smuggling of petroleum products with all its might. Those running this government know all the subsidy thieves. So, they can be tamed if this government so desires. Likewise, if smuggling is blocked, there will be at least 50 percent reduction in the money spent on subsidy and petrol importation. This can be done in this modern era of protecting borders with technology, particularly using drones.

Unfortunately, the responses we get from our President are prickly tales about how Nigeria’s petrol is still the cheapest in West Africa; that Nigerians should be happy paying between “just” N568 and N630 for a litre of petrol. I was livid when Tinubu recently approved that the chart containing prices of PMS in other West African countries be transmitted to Nigerians to show that ours is the cheapest.

The President needs to be reminded that petrol selling between N568 and N630 per litre in Nigeria is not “cheap” in relation to the incomes of many of us. Minimum wage is still a paltry N30,000. Nigerians are at present challenged by a cost of transportation or fueling vehicles to places of work that is higher than their incomes. When a man’s salary cannot cover his cost of transportation to work, that man is finished. This is why some government ministries and agencies reduced working days to three.

The effect of the massive rise in petrol price has also led to huge inflation which is now over 24 percent. So, the incomes of the majority of workers in this country have been eroded. A bag of local rice is now between N45,000 and N50,000. Prices of other staple foods like maize, millet, beans, sorghum have quadrupled. This is the result of the “cheap petrol” we are buying in Nigeria.

Nigeria does not belong to the club of the West African countries listed in Tinubu’s sermon on cheap petrol in Nigeria. All these countries are not producers of crude oil. This is one fact Tinubu is running away from. Nigerians ought to be enjoying the dividends of producing crude oil in terms of lower price of petroleum products. Many oil producing countries like Algeria, Kuwait, Angola, Iraq, Qatar, Russia and Saudi Arabia sell petrol at a price much lower than that of Nigeria. Tinubu pretends to be unaware.

Our President has also failed to admit that there is so much pain, so much suffering in all the West African countries where petrol is selling at a very high amount. The high price of petrol is largely responsible for the poverty in these countries. This is the club Tinubu has now thrown many Nigerians into. He must roll back petrol subsidy. This is the only way to reduce hunger in our land.

Our President’s response to raging killings in Nigeria, in 96 days, has also been appalling. Yes, he inherited an awful security situation from calamity ex-president Muhammadu Buhari. The situation is now extremely bad nationwide, no thanks to Tinubu’s clumsiness. Within 96 days, hundreds of Nigerians have been sent to early graves by terrorists. Visibly, Tinubu came with no plan on how to tame terrorism. His responses to terror attacks often leave me wondering if indeed this country has a Commander-in-Chief.

Last month, in Rafi Local Government Area of Niger State, terrorists, obviously with better intelligence, ambushed Nigerian soldiers, killing no fewer than 25 of them. A military helicopter that went to evacuate the dead and injured soldiers also crashed, killing another 11 soldiers, the flight crew inclusive. Three weeks after these killings, the terrorists behind the attack are yet to be smoked out. The Commander-in-Chief only sent a condolence message to the military. He did not task them, with a deadline, to smoke out the terrorists. I doubt if anything punitive will happen to the terrorists.

The Rafi terror attack reminds me of one of the deadliest massacres of Nigerian soldiers by Boko Haram, which took place in Metele, Borno State, in November 2018. Scores of soldiers were killed at 157 Task Force Battalion in the town. The exact casualty figure is still a closely-protected secret. The commander of that battalion, Lt. Col. Ibrahim Sakaba was also killed during the attack. Till date, the terrorists that carried out the operation have not been smoked out. With the Rafi attack, it looks good to happen again under Tinubu.

Terrorists are very much alive and kicking all over Nigeria. These non-state actors are controlling territories and running their own government in many states. Thousands of farmers have been displaced. Our gallant soldiers are doing their best but lack the capacity to end the war. That was why the military, in this modern era, embarked on that mission to Rafi without air coverage. It is pertinent to state that quality war machines, technology, intelligence and quality manpower are necessities for taming terrorists. Use of drones for intelligence gathering and attacks is also vital. Our security agencies lack these. They obviously lack the capacity to effectively monitor the movement of terrorists. This is why these guerrillas move around in hundreds undetected.

Tinubu has failed to respond appropriately to challenges facing the military. So, terrorists continue to kill scores of Nigerians, daily. It is so sad that the Commander-in-Chief has failed to respond fittingly to the painful fact that the Nigerian military, in this modern era, lacks precision-tooled strike drones.

Mr. President, the Military needs a full package of precision strike drone centres with nationwide coverage that entails at least six 24/7 Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) platforms to counter terrorism, kidnapping, oil theft, pipelines vandalization, illegal refinery, militancy and sea piracy in the six geopolitical zones. It must be a total package with very deadly capabilities.

Mr. President, this country needs help from climes that can provide these military necessities and manpower. We must import both the equipment and manpower. A people-oriented government will seek help from anywhere to protect its people against terrorists. It is not a crime to have military contractors joining a standing army to tame terrorists. My suggestion has always been that this country should look towards Israel or Canada. Tinubu, you must act swiftly in this direction. Only this truth can set Nigeria free from the servitude of terrorists.  

*Monguno IDPs Struggling For Survival 

Tragedy struck at an Internally Displaced Persons camp in Monguno, Borno State, early this week, when a classroom sheltering scores of people in this garrison town collapsed after torrential rains, killing seven people. Many others sustained injuries.  

The collapsed classroom is one of the many in this hitherto public secondary school converted into an IDP camp. It is now home to over 5,000 traumatised people who fled their towns and villages to escape the wrath of Boko Haram and ISWAP. They live in makeshift camps under military and militia protection, yet, they are sometimes attacked by terrorists. 

Life is hellish in this camp dominated by hunger, disease, malnutrition and fire outbreaks. Infact, the classroom that collapsed last Monday had been weakened by a previous fire outbreak. In this Monguno camp, IDPs struggle for a meal a day. 

The fact that this camp has over 5000 IDPs punches holes in the lies by the federal government that Boko Haram and ISWAP had been degraded. Well, that will be a story for continuation on another day. For now, there is an urgent need to improve the living conditions in the Monguno camp for IDPs. These people need improved supply of food, good healthcare and enhanced security. Today, I challenge the federal government and the Borno State government to do the needful in this camp.

*Adebowale is a commentator on public issues (yemi.adebowale@thisdaylive.com)