Unfortunately we are used to these type of fire brigade short term solutions to shut the mouth of Nigerians for immediate calm, and it has always given the desired result to our political leaders hence, depleting our capacity to strategically think outside the box when faced with challenges of this magnitude.
This usual approach is what Nigerians want because it profits those who are always irresponsibly implementing the policies, first:
- Those saddled with the responsibility will divert a portion for themselves and stock it away in their private warehouses
- Then the state Governors will stock away a portion for themselves and their cronies for special allocation
- The commissioners overseeing the distributions or allocating sale off points will liase with dubious grain racketeers to come and buy off a large chunk while they distribute a meagre portion to the LGAs
- Now the LGA chairmen will ensure there own grain racketeers are on standby, after the Media propaganda and photo opps to show commencement of the sales to the rural people, they will then off take the larger portion at night, after 2 days the grain are finished and the talakawas are left high and dry.
Then we’ll be back to square one.
This is the Nigerian scenario. I am not a prophet but watch as it plays out in the coming weeks.
I was part of the small percentage of Nigerians that kept screaming at the top of their voices that the insecurity affecting the rural peasant farmers and many commercial farmers will lead to a serious food shortage, scarcity and food insecurity if not nipped in the bud.
Today, we are faced with the reality, a situation where our rural farmers couldn’t cultivate a large portion of their farmlands for fear of been either kidnapped, maimed or killed on their farms. Commercial farmers were also affected, leading to a shortage that forced prizes to go up.
Additionally, companies that use grins and other food items as raw materials refused to cultivate them and resorted to buying off grains and food items from our rural markets, while Government and its agencies looked the other way, today we’re faced with a very desperate situation.
This is in addition to speculators who store up grains, create scarcity and demand while prices go up so as to get a 1000% profit, many of them don’t farm but buy off from rural markets.
All these and many more reasons got us to the point where we are today.
But painfully, apart from this short term distributory strategy, I am yet to see a robust and pragmatic strategy that seek to raise even the smallest glimpse of hope that the Government and its agencies are genuinely committed to a strategy that will clean up these mess.
We are in this for the long haul.
