On salt and injury

Civil disobedience, that’s not our problem. Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity and war and cruelty. Our problem is that the people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves and all the while the grand thieves are running the country.” Howard Zinn

Official responses to the cost-of-living crisis and the impoverishment of full three-quarters of the populace over the last 18 months are becoming rather ridiculous. Last week, Mrs Remi Tinubu, First Lady of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, was in Kaduna to hand-out 22,800 bags of rice for distribution to Christians in all the 19 Northern States. For effect, the event at Murtala Muhammad Square was graced by the Governors of Katsina State, Dikko Radda; Benue State, Father Hyacinth Alia; Yobe State, Mai Mala Buni; and Kaduna State, Uba Sani.

Apart from the fact that palliatives are a pathetic reaction to the crisis created by government’s own policy; what dent would 1,200 bags of 50kg apiece cover in each of these states with populations running in the millions? Kaduna State alone with a total population of over eight million has at least three million Christians. Benue and Plateau states similarly have four andthree million each. On which planet could a donation of 0.02grams of rice or less per head ease the hardship of these citizens for Christmas and the New Year?

Earlier in the year, Mrs Tinubu also donated 2400 bags of rice to ‘vulnerable’ households in Rivers State with a population of over five million people. This was at the beginning of the feud between Governor Siminalayi Fubara and Nyesom Wike, minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). For a pastor, politician and philanthropist whose family net worth is estimated at $4 bullion, these quanta of palliatives are not only puny but pitiful.

The Federal Government itself started the whole rice distributionshindig when President Bola Tinubu ordered the delivery and distribution of 20,000 bags of rice to each of the 36 states of the federation and the FCT last year. So far, the largest intervention by the Federal Government involves the distribution of 20 truckloads containing 1,200 of 25 kg bags of rice to each state.Lagos and Kano States have populations estimated at 19 and 20million respectively so that if this rice is shared to 33 per cent of the population being the most vulnerable, it translates to 100g and 200g per person respectively. This caricature of caring was captured in viral videos of anonymous persons in armoured vehicles tossing small sachets of rice at pedestrians on major roads. Divided among the total of 220 million Nigerians, the total of 37 million kilogrammes of rice will give each citizen 0.6 grams. To boot, the bulk was re-bagged by corrupt officials and their agents and ended up in the open market.

Meanwhile, in the 2025 budget the priorities are palpably misplaced. The Presidency takes N38,274,492,486 while the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security is to receive N13,617,355,386! Similarly, the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation was allotted N5,565,053,034 just as the Ministry of Works is to collect N25,325,820,450

The breakdown of the budget for the Presidential Villa in 2025 also shows that Tinubu and Vice President Kashim Shettima’s official quarters are to gulp N6.36 billion for maintenance in 2025. The annual upkeep of the Presidential Villa is put at N5.49 billion. Aside their official salaries and entitlements, the budget lists honorariums and sitting allowances for the duo as line items. The list also includes N4.75 billion for purchase of SUVs and other State House operational vehicles.

Bogus headlines announcing puny placebos actually aggravate the anger in the land. For instance, a recent report captioned “President approves N50,000 monthly grant to youths,” turned out to involve just 10,000 unemployed young people in the Niger-Delta. Another “First Lady Meets Governors’ wives, reels out empowerment programmes for 37,000 Nigerian women,” also disclosed that 1000 women from each state and the Federal Capital Territory will receive a one-off grant of N50,000 to grow their petty businesses and help them exit the poverty trap!

The Executive Branch is not alone in dishing out galling gifts to the masses. The National Assembly recently announced a donation of a portion of their salaries. In the wake of anti-government protests members of the House of Representativesagreed to donate 50 per cent of their salaries for six months to assist the Federal Government in dealing with hunger across the land. The salary is N600,000 a month with each member paying N300,000 a month. The total contribution is N648 million in six months.

Putting aside the fact that palliatives, otherwise defined as placebos, are the opposite of cures or treatment, the posture presents itself as a grossly inequitable and unjust gesture that should be urgently upturned. Poverty which the measure seeks to alleviate is not even nearly equally distributed across the country. Populations of poor people are similarly sharply disparate amongst the states and geopolitical regions.

Political office-holders need to know that the issues involved would take more than tokenism to resolve. For instance, the new minimum wage of N70,000 hurriedly passed into law by the National Assembly and swiftly signed by President Bola Tinubu is nowhere near solving the biting cost-of-living crisis. The amount is still less than the price of a bag of rice. It needs to be complemented with provisions for healthcare, education, transportation and affordable power.

To properly gage the poverty levels in the North, there is a need to understand that insecurity in the northeast, northwest and a large portion of the north-central geopolitical zones has put over 70 per cent of the population out of work for the past decade. Agriculture as the mainstay of the region’s economy and highest employer of labour has largely been arrested by an unprecedented spike in armed robbery, banditry, communal conflicts, kidnapping, cattle-rustling and farmers/herders clashes. Erstwhile breadbaskets of the nation and indeed the West African sub-region such as Adamawa, Benue, Kaduna, Plateau, Nasarawa, Niger, Sokoto and Zamfara states are now net food beggars.

What Nigerians urgently need now is improved security and the enabling environment to eke out a living in the wake of the draconian economic policies imposed on the nation by the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and other foreign institutions. Policies to rapidly promote import-substitution not just for food production but basic manufactures are required to restore the value of the Naira and concomitantly the salaries and wages of workers. Anything short of that is an open invitation to anarchy which will benefit only those interested in further exploitation of the nation’s enormous resources. Politicians who may have accumulated enough resources salted away in safe havens abroad may not escape the consequences of such a scenario and are advised to have a quick rethink.