Year 2024: A Year Of Hunger, Misery, And Unrelenting Hardship -By Abdulkadir Salaudeen 

In the next few days, Nigeria, like many other countries shall be crossing over to a new year (2025). May it be a year of abundance, happiness, and prosperity. Do not be among those who think there cannot be prosperity and abundance in Nigeria—considering the calibre of the current rulers ruling over us. While there could be no glimmer of hope from the look of things, it is not out of place to wish oneself and one’s country prosperity in year 2025 and beyond. 

For most Nigerians (except perhaps our rulers who hold the sharp knife for cutting the national cake), year 2024 is unarguably a year of hunger, misery, and unrelenting hardship. For one like me who still has the strength to write and for many Nigerians who narrowly escaped being gnashed under the callous jaw of government-induced-hunger that has driven many to the graveyard, we must give special thank to God.

I thank the Almighty, on behalf of myself and all those who believe in the existence of God, for sparing our souls to stay alive when many have been, and are being, stampeded to their graves. Indeed, Nigeria has become a country full of misery and miserable people. We are as miserable as a wet hen. Or how does one categorize a country where people risk their lives for a plate of rice, for a few naira notes, and even for scooping a bucket of highly inflammable liquid (petrol) that is accidentally discharged? All these are witnessed on regular basis in Nigeria in the year under review.   

What about the collapse of national grid? If we are fortunate not to experience more grid collapse for the days left in 2024 as I write, it means national grid collapse in Nigeria in 2024 occurred on the average of once in a month. We experienced the 12th collapse of the national grid in the second week of December. If national grid could collapse so frequently, it is difficult to say, with accuracy, what has not collapsed in Nigeria. Businesses, incomes, salaries, investments, and even ability to think of reasonable source of income have collapsed.  To survive, as poor people, under this regime is miraculous. We are religious people who believe in miracles. The survival of many of us under this cold regime further strengthens my belief in miracles. Our God is, no doubt, the miracle-working God.  

At the end of 2023, I wrote my last piece for that year; it was titled “Year 2023: A Review of its Absurdities and Some Top Confessions.” The year was truly full of absurdities. But by the end of this year 2024, what I find most appropriate for my end of the year column is to write about our resilience—having miraculously survive unrelenting hardship under the Emilokan regime. This does not in anyway imply that Year 2024 is not full of government absurdities. It is only that hunger trumps all other discussions. 

Having thanked God for survival, let’s award ourselves. We need to give ourselves a survival trophy. We deserve it. I read disappointments on the lips of virtually every Nigerian I know that watched the Presidential Media Chat on Monday. Many maintained that the President displayed rare and fantastic intransigence to continue inflicting pains on Nigerians since he does not regret any of his actions especially the removal of oil subsidy which we learnt is still being paid. Whether that is right or wrong, the ability of Nigerians to watch their tormentor is an evidence of Nigerians’ resilience. 

I asked: could there be Nigerians who still have the mental equilibrium to watch that media chat in this general state of homeostatic disequilibrium? That is great. I did not watch it, though I had the time. I deliberately avoided watching it just to maintain my sanity. I know it is going to be narcissistic—full of self-praise. Many Nigerians who watched the chat confirmed what I think I know about the likely takeaway from the chat. We don enter one chance. 

That said, I seize this opportunity to console all those who lost their loved ones to bandits, to kidnappers, to terrorists, to Nigerian hospitals that are now synonymous with graveyards, to Nigerian roads that are equivalent to death traps, to bad governance, to bombs targeted at terrorists but that are always “mistakingly” dropped over our innocent northern men, women and children, and to food stampedes in various parts of the country. May the Almighty have mercy on the lost ones and console their families who are nursing the pains of tragic loss of their beloved. 

My special thanks to President Tinubu administration for being fair and just in democratization of hunger. Even though the President has been criticized for Lagosianization of appointments, all I know is that he is fair in making Lagosians feel the pangs of hunger just like any other Nigerian in Jigawa, Yobe, Bayelsa, and Anambra. He deserves this credit. He is not a sectional president as some want us to believe. His hardship induced policies seem to follow democratic principle. The sharing formula of hardship in the regime democratically factors in the Calabar, the Fulani, the Hausa, the Igbo, the Kanuri, the Yoruba, the…etc. The federal character principle is religiously adhered to in hardship distribution such  that Christians, Muslims, Idol worshippers, atheists, and agnostics all have their fair share of misery.

May I specially congratulate Nigerian corps members (coppers)—especially those who celebrated Christmas with chicken—for their new understanding.  They just realized what it means to have chicken change as allowee when 30k out of the 33k of their individual monthly allowee can only buy a chicken to celebrate Christmas. The remaining chicken change (3k) cannot even buy vegetable oil and charcoal to fry the chicken. This is how miserable we have become as people. 

A friend and colleague of mine will always say: “Mallam, there is a curse on this country,” each time we discuss Nigeria. While I never believed there is a curse on my motherland, isn’t it time I shifted position? But would my critical mind allow me to believe curse is the explanation for the misery and the hunger in the land? No! No!! No!!! 

Rather than curse, we have either elected wicked people or wicked people have imposed themselves on us. May we be free from their iron fists.

I wish Nigerians a prosperous new year in advance.

Abdulkadir Salaudeen 

salahuddeenabdulkadir@gmail.com