IN 2022, the United Nations listed five countries threading the infamy path of famine.
They are Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Yemen.
Muhammadu Buhari was the President of Nigeria then and there isn’t on record, definite and definitive policies by his administration to ensure the foretold hunger anarchy did not visit his own, whether his beloved North or despised South. Since 2019 when Audu Innocent Ogbeh was pulled out as Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development for Sabo Nanono, even the hope-stirring anti-hunger rhetoric and optics, first brought onboard by Innocent’s predecessor and now high-flying globalist, Dr Akinwunmi Adesina, had dried up. Less than two years after the warning that Nigeria risked becoming one of the hungriest nations on the earth, it has now happened.
Even for the duo of the politician, Minister Mustapha Baba Shehuri and the technocrat; Permanent Secretary Ernest Afolabi Umakhihe, currently managing the critical ministry, cluelessness will be the most-apt, to describe their response to the existential food crisis and exorbitant costing, confronting Nigerians today.
A partner of the global body and US-based non-profit, Action Against Hunger, wrote recently while soliciting donations to support malnourished nations, “According to the United Nations, right now, an all-time high of as many as 49 million people in 46 countries could be at risk of falling into famine if they do not get urgent assistance. The countries at highest risk of famine in 2022 are Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Yemen. While famine hasn’t been declared – and it may never be – the warning bells are now ringing, and the world must listen. We cannot wait for an official famine designation to take action to save lives.”
The NGO added “To declare a famine, the world turns to the Integrated Phase Classification (IPC) system a framework involving governments, UN agencies, non-profit organizations, civil society, and other relevant partners. Together, using the IPC’s scientific standards and analytical approach, partners classify the severity and magnitude of food crises in a country. The IPC has five phases for hunger crises, ranging from Phase 1 (Minimal/None) to Phase 5 (Catastrophic/Famine), and each has its own set of technical criteria”.
A nation is deemed to be in Phase 1 (Minimal/None) if “More than four in five households (HHs), are able to meet essential food and non-food needs without engaging in atypical, unsustainable strategies to access food and income”.
Phase 2 (known as Stressed) happens to a people when “Even with any humanitarian assistance at least one in five HHs in the area have the following or worse: Minimally adequate food consumption but are unable to afford some essential non-food expenditure without engaging in irreversible coping strategies”.
Anti-hunger stakeholders hold that at the third Phase, tagged the Crisis phase, it would be that “Even with any humanitarian assistance at least one in five HHs in the area have the following or worse: Food consumption gaps with high or above usual acute malnutrition OR are marginally able to meet minimum food needs only accelerated depletion of livelihood assets that will lead to food consumption gaps”.
At Emergency level in Phase 4 “Even with any humanitarian assistance at least one in five HHs in the area have the following or worse: Large food consumption gaps resulting in very high acute malnutrition and excess mortality OR extreme loss of livelihood assets that will lead to food consumption gaps in the short term”.
Famine is finally declared at Phase 5, when “Even with any humanitarian assistance at least one in five HHs in the area have an extreme lack of food and other basic needs where starvation, death and destitution are evident. Evidence for all three criteria (food consumption, acute malnutrition and mortality) is required to classify famine”.
Yoruba will say “ibi to ko oju si enikan, ehin lo ko si elomiran” (people feel and view things differently), which makes it difficult to generalise the Phase the country is today, because some of those joining the hunger chorus concerts across the country, are just lending their voices in what Yoruba will call “oju aye” (joining the bandwagon not to be seen as not participating), considering that they are turbo-comfy even in the middle of the national agony.
But no doubt, majority of the population is reeling, just like the COVID-era, only that now, the hunger in the land, isn’t yet a leveller, because the super-rich still have enough to buy off the available. For everyday Nigerian, the situation is already beyond Phase 5 and in many areas, it is five households out of five, (not one, as structured by UN and other stakeholders) that have “extreme lack of food and other basic needs, where starvation, death and destitution are evident”. It would be good if Action Against Hunger and others anti-famine non-profit organizations can reach them. There is nothing to be ashamed of at this point calling for global help for those who desperately need it.
This is not writing this government off as one that can’t feed its own. It is just the reality on ground. Until people are able to farm in peace, the current ugliness won’t abate. That is why the Tinubu administration should also consider drafting civil defence officers to securing farms. Thankfully, they now bear arms. Let it be fire for fire, for bandits and kidnappers.
In 2 Timothy 3, Apostle Paul foretold of a time like we currently have in Nigeria, but his focus was on those who would get the nation there. He called it Perilous Times of the last days and the monsters that humanity would have bred.
According to him, admonishing Timothy, his protege, “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.
“For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,
“Traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.
“For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
“Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith.
“But they shall proceed no further: for their folly shall be manifest unto all men, as theirs also was. Evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.”
What else can one add?
READ ALSO: One million Nigerian children die annually before their 5th birthday – FCTA
