Atlantic Post

Atiku is cashing in on every available opportunity to berate what he describes as ‘’the dysfunctional’’ All Progressives Congress (APC) and President Muhammadu Buhari,  on the twin scourge in the country. The issues appear to be quite weighty enough to occupy the political sovereigns and the power seekers across the plural political parties.

For instance, The Borgen Project, a non-profit organisation concerned with addressing poverty and hunger and working towards ending them says Nigeria is one of many food-deficient countries in Africa, and that her alarming hunger statistics are tied with high levels of conflict that have plagued the region surrounding the country for years.

According to the group, ‘’a food crisis such as Nigeria’s causes distressing levels of stunting in children and is correlated with high rates of poverty. The following are the top 10 facts about hunger in Nigeria.

1. One-third of children under five are stunted. This statistic is particularly concerning because it is twice the rate of Thailand and three times the rate of Tunisia. Stunting in children is a common symptom of undernourishment and can only be alleviated with a steady supply of adequate food.
2. The insurgency in the country has led to a large number of displaced people without access to food. The reign of the extremist group, Boko Haram, has left 8.5 million people in need of humanitarian assistance in Nigeria.
3. On top of the rates of displacement, 5.1 million Nigerians are malnourished. Being on the move makes food sources even less reliable. Countries with high rates of political conflict typically have hunger issues that coincide.
4. The amount of food insecure households is highest in the rural region of Borno in Nigeria. In Borno State, 64.2 percent of households are food insecure. In late July of 2017, the government of Nigeria declared a state of food and nutrition emergency in Borno.
5. In the states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe there were 400,000 children under 5 at risk of severe acute malnutrition in 2016. Approximately 244,000 of these cases are in Borno alone. Food insecurity especially affects children as they are dependent on nourishment for growth and development.
6. Action Against Hunger (AAH) is active in Nigeria and has completed an assessment of risk levels in the state of Borno. AAH found levels of global acute malnutritionat 28 percent and severe malnutrition at 8 percent in Borno. These levels are especially alarming because both are almost double the international emergency threshold.
7. Households headed by females are more inclined to have high rates of food insecurity. In the states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe, 55 percent of female-headed households are food insecure. Women in low-income countries often have less opportunity to gain employment that would allow them to feed their families, leading to increased levels of food deficiency.
8. Action Against Hunger has provided clinics to aid with hunger in Nigeria. These clinics provide assistance for malnourished children, nursing mothers and pregnant women. Establishments like these save countless lives every year.
9. The International Committee of the Red Cross has been active in fighting hunger in Nigeria. In 2017, the ICRC reached over 1 million Nigerians and provided relief and livelihood training and assistance. They also provided 450,000 people in the north-east and Middle Belt regions with food for three months.
10. Of the 17 million people living in regions affected by Boko Haram, 11 million are in need of humanitarian aid, food, water and shelter. These numbers delineate the effects of political strife on low-income countries. Dangerous and unreliable living conditions are not conducive to access to an adequate food supply.’’

Atiku on Tuesday said Buhari and his APC have only succeeded in creating an era of poverty and acute starvation in the country in the last three and half years.

That report by The World Poverty Clock tends to give credence to Atiku’s claim. The report showed Nigeria has overtaken India as the country with the most extreme poor people in the world. India has a population seven times larger than Nigeria’s. The struggle to lift more citizens out of extreme poverty is an indictment on successive Nigerian governments which have mismanaged the country’s vast oil riches through incompetence and corruption.

The 86.9 million Nigerians now living in extreme poverty represents nearly 50% of her estimated 180 million population. As Nigeria faces a major population boom—it will become the world’s third largest country by 2050—it’s a problem will likely worsen. But having large swathes of people still living in extreme poverty is an Africa-wide problem.

While addressing a crowd of supporters at the PDP North East Zonal Presidential rally in Gombe, Gombe State, Atiku lamented that the APC misled the nation by making false promises adding that Nigerians have suffered enough under the Buhari-led APC incompetent administration.

The PDP candidate who appreciated the resolve of Nigerians to rally behind him as the next President of the country, noted that his party which had earlier dominated Nigeria for 16 years, and roundly being blamed by the APC for the mess the country is in, is on a rescue mission, armed with a blueprint to eradicate hunger and starvation as well as stem the tide of violence, daily bloodletting and killings in the country.

‘’In 2015, the APC promised us food on our table, but today we are hungry. The PDP has come to rescue the people of from the painful poverty and suffering which the APC has put us into’’, he said just as the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, speaking among other dignitaries at the rally, also berated the APC for failing in their campaign promises to Nigerians

But Atiku and all the other political potentates who left the PDP before the 2015 elections, were instrumental to installing Buhari and the APC, and as such, are all partners in the failure of the Buhari administration. Similarly, when Buhari/APC keeps indicting the PDP for the rot in the country, it is also a self-indictment because most of the political forces who shaped the destiny of the PDP emptied into the APC for fear of being crushed by the Buhari anti-corruption sledge-hammer. APC and PDP politicians with the feet of clay are all locked in a zig-zag political romance for their selfish motives.

Dogara however, lamented that the insurgency challenge in the country has worsened under President Buhari and has now extended beyond the North East to North Central and North West with heavy bloodletting in the country, harping further that the APC government must leave the stage because events of the past three years have shown that they have no solutions to all the problems they have caused the nation.

‘’If a leader fail to perform after four years, the people should retire him. My brothers, in the North-East, we have so much at stake in this election. The 2019 election is not between PDP and APC; it is not between Atiku and Buhari, but between me and you as individuals and a government that has failed to fulfilled the expectations of Nigerians and the expectations of the entire people of the North-East.The 2019 election is an election between the APC and the over 84 million Nigerians who were put into abject poverty by the APC in the last four years’’, Dogara said.

Governor Ibrahim Hassan Dankwambo of Gombe State in his remark said the candidacy of Atiku presents the North East and Nigeria, in general, the opportunity to vote in a reliable and competent leader to correct the ills of the APC administration, adding, ‘’Atiku’s presidency is a fight against poverty and insecurity, I called on all the people of the North east to rally round the PDP at all level to actualise our long time aspiration of producing a President.’’