Eric Dumo
Ibrahim Bala, five, ran around the premises in
company with other children as they engaged each
other in a game of hide and seek. Naive and
harmless, the little boy jumped about with utmost
joy as the play increased in momentum. His charm
was infectious.
Ibrahim Bala, five, ran around the premises in
company with other children as they engaged each
other in a game of hide and seek. Naive and
harmless, the little boy jumped about with utmost
joy as the play increased in momentum. His charm
was infectious.
But the toddler could have been in a different
situation now if not for share luck. Last Sunday, his
father, Yusuf, used him as collateral for a bag of 50
kilogram rice at a popular market in Kano after
being unable to provide for his family anymore. The
middle-aged man after agreeing price with the
seller, Alhaji Suleiman Bagudu, had left his son
behind and went away with the bag of rice to fetch
the money he claimed to have forgotten at home.
Six hours without a sign of him, the worried trader
traced Yusuf all the way to his house in the Koki,
Dala Local Government Area of the state, through
the help of his little son. Bagudu arrived to the
sight of the household feasting on hot plates of
rice.
“I am ashamed I had to go that far to get food for
my family but if I hadn’t come up with that trick that
day, I don’t know what would have happened to us
or how we would have been able to withstand the
hunger,” Bala said earlier in the week when one of
our correspondents visited the family’s home in a
densely populated part of the city. “I have sold
almost everything I have to sustain my family.
Things are getting hard by the day; taking care of
them is not easy for me anymore. It is not as if I
don’t love my son or plan to do him evil, I left him
at the market because I knew as a brilliant boy, he
would be able to lead the owner of the rice to our
house if they didn’t see me after some time. I am
so sorry for committing this act, it is hunger that
drove me into it,” he said, as neighbours,
uncomfortable at the sight of our correspondent,
prevented any further interaction.
Frightening as it sounds, Bala is not the only one to
have turned to weird and unconventional methods to
escape hunger and lack these days – individuals
and even families across the country are embracing
these new tactics to weather the storm, too.
For example, a middle-aged woman in Ibadan, Oyo
State, according to unconfirmed reports, had used
her seven-year-old daughter as deposit for a bowl
of cassava flake known in local parlance as garri six
weeks ago. Hit by pang of hunger, the woman like
Bala, had tricked the seller into believing that she
forgot the money at home and would rush to fetch it
while her innocent child stayed back. By the time
the girl led the trader to their house hours later, the
widow and her two remaining children were already
feasting on the item. The seller quietly walked away
in shock after finding out the motive behind the
strange behaviour.
Even with these almost unbelievable stories, the
survival tactics adopted these days go beyond mere
using of biological children as collateral – the
practice appears to be assuming different and in
fact scarier dimensions by the day.
A drinking joint operator in Port Harcourt, the Rivers
State capital, Ibiba Dakoru, told our correspondent
during a telephone conversation in the course of the
week that some customers now plead with her to
convert drinks bought for them by friends into
money so that they purchase food items with it.
According to her, customers in this category would
only drink around one or two from about four or
more bottles bought for them by buoyant friends
while pleading with her to convert the rest to
money. She said she started witnessing the trend
among her customers three weeks ago.
“It came as a big shock to me when some of my
customers started asking me to convert some
bottles of beer bought for them into money so that
they can use it to eat and also take care of petty
responsibilities at home. If for example they are
given four bottles, they would only drink one or two
and beg me to please bear with them and give them
the rest as cash.
Even though I want to make sales, I cannot deny
any person such request especially when it is to
take care of feeding. I am already used to this type
of thing from customers now,” she said.
A food vendor in the Mile 12 area of Lagos simply
known as Iya Mubarak, told Saturday PUNCH that
pleas for credits by customers had increased
significantly over the last few weeks so much so
that her once thriving business is now under severe
threat.
According to her, apart from owing debts running
into thousands of naira, many customers now use
some of their valuable items like mobile phones,
shoes, wristwatches and even expensive fabric
materials to stand as deposits for meals pending
when they’ll be able to offset their bills with her.
“I was shocked when one of my very loyal
customers came to me that he and his family didn’t
have anything to eat for the weekend and that he
wanted to leave one of his expensive native attire
with me as deposit for food pending when he’d be
able to raise money to pay me. I felt like crying at
that point because this is a man that paid me cash
every time he came around no matter the amount of
the food he bought.
“There are other customers who would beg me to
hold on to their mobile phones in exchange for food
so that they can collect them when they settle me.
In fact, the items people offer me for a plate of
food these days breaks my heart but as a good
Muslim, I cannot accept those items. All I do is
give such people the little food I can and ask them
not to bother about the money. I do this for only
those customers I have known for a long time and
whom I know fell into hard times.
“However, I must confess that this is really
affecting my business because it is what is
supposed to give me profit that I give out to my
loyal customers who come to me for food on
credit. It has not been funny at all,” she said.
In recent weeks, Mr. Bayo Aluko, a public relations
executive at a leading communications agency in
Ikeja, Lagos, has had to part with various sums of
money as handouts to people especially on
Sundays when he visits his mother at their family
home in the Ikorodu area of the city.
Apart from the regular financial assistance to some
old time friends and even elderly neighbours around
the place who would immediately come into the
family compound on sighting his vehicle or noticing
his presence, his mother, a retired civil servant, also
gives them free meals during such unsolicited
visits.
“It’s always a full house whenever I visit my mother
every Sunday at our family home in Ikorodu. For
some of our neighbours and old time friends, it is
always an opportunity for them to eat free lunch. In
fact, many of these people would hang around the
house once it’s 2:00pm because they know that is
about the time I visit my mother. Even when I don’t
visit with my car, they still have a way of finding out
that I am around and come into our compound for
the usual stuff.
“But what can you do? People are hungry and want
to utilise any given opportunity to survive. Even
though I am also managing to sustain myself and
family, I cannot stand the sight of these guys
staying hungry when I could at least do something
for them. In fact, there are some Sundays I hand out
nothing less than N5, 000 to many of these people.
What some of them are facing is better imagined
than said. On few occasions I am not able to visit;
my mother tells me that some still come to eat
lunch at her place after pretending to have an
appointment with me there. It is a very serious
situation,” he said.
Confronted with crushing hunger and stark
deprivation, putting food on the table has become
increasingly tough for many families and individuals
in recent weeks, especially with the economy
showing no signs of improving. In many states of
the federation, government employees are owed
months of salaries while in the private sector, job
losses have been the order of the day. As a result,
three square meals have become almost a luxury
many can no longer afford.
“I had to sublet one of the rooms in my flat
recently just to raise some money to survive with
my family. The caretaker of the house is not aware
of this; the arrangement is just between me and the
young man who rented the room. Since losing my
job last year, I have yet to get anything tangible to
do. My wife also does not work anymore, so
survival has been very difficult. At least with the
little money the guy paid, we have bought enough
foodstuff in the house that would last us for some
time. I fear hunger and I don’t want my family to
experience it at all,” a former bank worker who
resides in the Alapere area of Lagos, Tola Adedeji,
told our correspondent during a chance meeting at
a football viewing centre earlier in the week. Lack
has driven him into devising a new survival tactics.
According to findings by Saturday PUNCH, part of
the new strategy people now also adopt to
overcome hunger in many parts of the country today
is by sending text messages to people they know
to solicit financial assistance. Some who are bold
enough openly beg for money to eat while others
simply pay unannounced visits to friends at periods
they know they are likely to meet such individuals
and families dining.
“If I show you the number of messages I have on
my phone from people I barely know begging me
for financial assistance, you’ll be shocked,” Charles
Edafe, a businessman based in Warri, Delta State,
told our correspondent during a telephone
conversation earlier in the week. “Some of them are
church members while others are people who I have
known not too long ago in the area where I live and
mostly the reason a lot of them give for the request
is to take care of feeding and other related needs.
Business is not thriving the way it used to in the
past, there isn’t much help I can render to anyone
at this time because I am also managing the little
resources at my disposal,” he added.
Also, the rising trend has equally seen individuals
attending parties and other social gatherings where
there are plenty to eat and drink without being
invited.
Once able to smuggle themselves into such venues,
individuals in this bizarre survival practice stuff as
much food as they can lay their hands on into
polythene bags and even sacks to take home to eat
with their families.
Smart young men now leverage on the crowd at
such social events to make brisk money and also
combat hunger. While some turn emergency praise
singers, hailing and flocking around people for a
token at such gathering, others simply think outside
the box, parking and watching over vehicles in
return for financial reward. Most of what they make
from such smart concepts goes into taking care of
food and other basic needs.
In Kwara State for instance, theft of cooked food
especially the ones still on fire is now a common
feature.
The incident which had become widespread in
areas where there are no perimeter fencing, has left
many residents of the state, especially Ilorin, the
capital, in panic and confusion. It is a trend never
previously seen in the ancient city.
“People would devise means to survive any
situation,” sociologist, Dapo Bodunde, pointed
during a chat with Saturday PUNCH. “What we are
seeing now is a clear case of natural selection,
survival of the fittest if you like. In any society
where the leaders are not committed to the welfare
of the people, these types of things are certain to
abound. Look at the country today, nothing appears
to be working. The implication of this chaotic
system is that hunger and crime are certain to be a
regular feature. In the bid to put food on the table
by all means, citizens are of course going to adopt
all sorts of strategies including selling belongings,
borrowing, begging and even stealing in some
cases.
“I think government at every level must quickly
come up with ideas on how to tackle some of these
problems. When people are hungry, they can resort
to extreme measures to address their needs. Some
of the steps such people could take may harm the
society at the end, so their case is not something
anybody can wish away. Our leaders must urgently
improve the welfare of the masses before this leads
to bigger problems for the society,” he said.
Economist, Chidi Nweze, identifies one of the major
factors fuelling the spate of hunger across most
parts of the country as a result of the stagnation of
the economy and short flow of cash in the system.
The rising rate of unemployment, he also reckons,
is another dimension to the problem.
“We don’t need rocket science to explain the reason
behind the level of hunger in the country. The
economy is yet to pick up and as a result, there is
short flow of cash in the system, meaning that the
money in circulation is not trickling down the chain
system the way it should. Even though the budget
had been passed into law, implementation has not
really taken effect.
“So, until this, in addition to problems like
unemployment, is addressed, many households
might continue to experience hunger and lack. The
truth is that until you deal with the factors fuelling
these problems, nothing significant would change,”
he said.
The new bizarre trend sweeping across the country
appears to be a respecter of no man or woman as
the crave for food continues to drive individuals into
adopting all sorts of measures. On June 23, 2016,
for example, a policeman was shot in the leg and
left hospitalised after soldiers and police officers
engaged in a scuffle over rice meant for Internally
Displaced Persons at the Government House,
Maiduguri, Borno State. Reports say things turned
violent when the soldiers, deployed to maintain law
and order at the place, tried to fill their vehicles
with several bags of food items. Unwilling to allow
the diversion take place, police officers who were in
charge of distributing the rice resisted attempts by
the soldiers to have their way.
According to Bodunde, the shameful incident further
highlights the problem of hunger in the country and
how far people can go these days to fill their
stomachs.
“The shameful conduct of our uniformed men in
Borno last week over bags of rice meant for IDPs is
a stark reminder of the level of hunger that prevails
in the land. If soldiers and policemen can openly
embarrass themselves over food, what then do you
expect of ordinary citizens who do not even have a
source of income?
“As a society, we would be committing a big
mistake to overlook this disturbing trend. If a
growing number of people now sell their belongings
and even resort to crazy survival tactics to beat
hunger, then the society must not wave this off. It is
a serious issue that calls for urgent attention,” she
said.
