Poverty is not a new topic for journalists in Nigeria. Poverty is the most famous situation reported on daily basis in the dailies and broadcasting stations in Nigeria because in terms of demographics, there are more poor households in Nigeria than anywhere else in the developing world. The only difference is that poverty isn’t been reported as a critical development oriented issue that must be confronted by the politicians.
Poverty is sometimes glamourised to appear like it is only just an existential situation that certain people must be afflicted with for the society to be complete. But this style of reporting is nothing short of a crime against humanity because the twin purposes of government is to advance, enhance, promote, protect the wellbeing, welfare of the greatest percentages of citizens and to guarantee security of their lives and property. So reporting poverty as if it is a natural state for certain class of people, is to say the least, the most offensive crime tobe committed by any journalists. It is therefore in this historical and pragmatic contexts that we will report about the worrying dimensions of child poverty, deprivation and destitution in Imo State regarded as the heartland of Nigeria.
Instructively, the National Bureau of Statistics said in 2018 that there were about 133 million multidimensionally poor households in Nigeria out of a population that hovers between 200 million or a little less than that.
But one aspect of the demographic errors that keep reoccurring are first, the mistaken belief that poverty is concentrated in Northern Nigeria and that child poverty, malnutrition are significantly higher in the Northern zone of Nigeria than in other places within the country with the South East been regarded as populated by families that are fantastically rich. These are inaccuracies that this piece has set out to correct. These inaccuracies are done on purpose so as to divert humanitarian reliefs and materials to the Northern zone of Nigeria. But I found out that hundreds of thousands of children who are equally deprived and are in destitution are been shortchanged only because they live in the South East of Nigeria regarded by statisticians as not too poor.
I spent one week beginning from the 24th of December to 31st of same month last year in Owerri and my eyes saw much more than I had bargained for in terms of destitution and child poverty. I saw kids as young as 4 roaming about in the areas surrounding modern and well stocked supermarkets that dot the major business district of the Owerri urban areas and what were these children busy doing: begging for foods and begging for just the basics of survival and I saw serious starvation in their eyes and frail bodies. I wept.
This is not the Imo state that governors like Sam Mbakwe worked vigorously to set up good governance standards whereby there are equity and equality of rights and whereby children, who should be cared for in their family homes and educated in early elementary schools, are afforded those human and basic rights as citizens. Why then have certain people started using children to beg for survival and what is the Imo State’s ministry of women and children’s affairs doing by way of amelioration of the biting poverty afflicting most children roaming around major supermarkets in Owerri?
There wasn’t any contemplation that there would come a time when Imo state will produce Indigenous street beggars who are barely kids that should be at homes or be educated in their schools.
Imo state of today has a large chunk of child beggars or ‘almajiris’ who are starving to the point of near-death and may die if help doesn’t get to them as quickly as possible.
This is no exegeration. I saw these kids with my naked eyes and with my naked eyes, I wept profusely for this underprivileged children suffering from child poverty, malnutrition and are obviously exposed to the dangers of being stolen and sold as slaves by the human trafficking networks that have become even more daring than we thought. To make matters worse, there is no government’s intervention to put an end to this disturbing trend in Imo State.
You know that type of anger and pain that come to you if you are in a situation in which you have only the capacity to offer so little a help? That was the pangs of pain and lamentations that befell me at the sights of these children roaming around these supermarkets whereby other families drive into to make purchases of millions of Naira on daily basis but lo and behold, there are children hanging around that are in need of food reliefs and are open to been enrolled in schools.
I saw these children in need about the same period that many Nigerians who went out to struggle for bags of rice for Christmas and most of these poor people paid the Supreme price of deaths as a result of accidental stampede. These stories of death actually happened in the South of Nigeria and the nation’s federal capital.
STAMPEDE IN IBADAN:
A tragic stampede occurred at a youth festival in Nigeria, resulting in the loss of at least 32 lives. The incident took place at an Islamic high school in Ibadan, Oyo State, where approximately 5,000 young people and children had gathered for the event .
According to Oyo State Commissioner for Information and Civic Orientation Dotun Oyelade, the stampede led to the deaths of 32 people, with video footage showing a large crowd of mostly children looking on as some were carried off the site to local hospitals. State Governor Seyi Makinde deployed security forces to control the situation and evacuate attendees from the site.
Governor Makinde expressed his sympathies to the parents of the victims, stating that “this is a very sad day” and promising that those responsible for the disaster would be held accountable . The primary organisers of the event, identified as the Women In Need Of Guidance and Support Foundation, have been taken into custody.
The event organisers had promised participants exciting prizes, including scholarships and gifts, which drew a large crowd to the festival . Nigeria’s national emergency services deployed a team to provide assistance to the victims, and investigations into the incident are ongoing. However, Oyo State government’s overzealous actions against the organisers of this charity function is misplaced. These philanthropists were only out to render help due to the widening poverty in the land and the stampede that happened was an accident that was unintended.
STAMPEDE IN ANAMBRA(OKIJA):
At least 12 people died and 32 were injured in a stampede in Okija, Anambra state, while scrambling for Christmas rice. The rice was distributed by Chief Earnest Obiejesi, also known as Obi Jackson, as part of his yearly tradition to help the less privileged.
The incident occurred when the crowd became uncontrollable, leading to a stampede. A witness attributed the cause of the deaths to the crowd’s behavior, stating that hunger led people to fear that the rice might not reach them.
The event was meant to be a charitable gesture, but it turned tragic. Mrs. Maria Okonkwo, an eyewitness, described the scene as overwhelming, with people shouting and the organizers trying to control the crowd.
The Anambra Police Public Relations Officer, SP Tochikwu Ikenga, confirmed that police operatives have taken over the scene and are investigating the incident. The police are working to provide a proper investigation and further details would be communicated.
STAMPEDE IN ABUJA:
Ten people, including four children, were killed in a stampede in Nigeria’s capital city, Abuja, during a Christmas charity event at the Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Maitama. The stampede occurred in the early morning hours as a large crowd gathered to collect food items distributed by the church.
Police spokesman Josephine Adeh said in a statement that more than 1,000 people have been evacuated from the church. Viral footage from the scene showed lifeless bodies on the ground as people shouted for help. Some of the injured have been treated and discharged, while others continue to receive medical care.
When it occurred, it was the second of such stampede in a week in Nigeria, raising questions about safety measures.
Earlier in the week, several children were killed in a stampede at a funfair in southwestern Oyo state, where a local foundation was distributing gift items to kids. The recent stampedes have highlighted the country’s economic hardship, with surging inflation and a record-low local currency contributing to frustration and mass protests.
The current economic hardship under Nigerian President Bola Tinubu has led to widespread frustration, with mass protests demanding better opportunities and jobs for young people.
However, the type of poverty that worries me as a human rights practitioner is that which traps children in the unmitigated webs of economic deprivation, destitution, lack of organised and formal education and exposure to sexual violations, human trafficking and recruitment into bad criminal activities and gangsterism.
This genre of poverty walks with four legs in the streets of Owerri, the Imo State capital in the South East of Nigeria.
According to a report by World Bank, Poverty has soared to hit more than half of the population over the last six years, according to the World Bank.
“Since 2018, the share of Nigerians living below the national poverty line is estimated to have risen sharply from 40.1 percent to 56.0 percent,” it said, adding that 129 million are now living in poverty.
Multiple issues have contributed to the spike, the lender said, citing “the Covid-19 recession, natural disasters such as flooding, growing insecurity, the high cost of the demonetisation policy in Q1 2023, high inflation and low economic growth”.
The share of the urban population living in poverty has nearly doubled, from 18 to 31.3 percent, according to the report, published twice a year assessing economic and social developments and prospects in Nigeria.
“Headline inflation is anticipated to peak at an average annual rate of 31.7 percent in 2024, largely driven by the depreciation of the naira and increased gasoline prices,” it said.
The World Bank said inflation was expected to fall from 32.7 percent in September to 14.3 percent by 2027, helped by the government’s macroeconomic reforms.
With two-thirds of Nigerians being under the age of 25, the government must create jobs, the organisation added.
On his part, the President of the African Development Bank (AfDB) Akinwunmi Adesina also raised concern over the rising poverty levels in Nigeria.
Adesina spoke in Abuja during the 90th birthday lecture of a former head of state Yakubu Gowon.
He said addressing the poverty level is key to Nigeria becoming a global player and leading the African continent.
“The National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, in 2022 estimated that 63% of persons living within Nigeria – over 133 million people at the time – are multi-dimensionally poor.
“It also states that over half of the population of Nigeria cook with charcoal wood, other than clean out energy. High deprivations are also apparent nationally in sanitation, health care, food security, and housing poverty,” he said on Friday.
“It is particularly extreme in rural areas where millions of people have been forgotten and abandoned. The gravity of the situation is even worse in northern Nigeria.”
He said, “As we speak today, 65% of the poor, that’s 86 million people live in northern Nigeria while 35% nearly 47 million live in the South.”
According to him, the level of poverty has led to crimes and a general fall in the standards of living among Nigerians.
“The level of suffering, helplessness, and abandonment are got in our hope and drowning communities and people in despair as economic activities plummet,” Adesina said. “Consequently, the criminal economy is ending the real economy of Nigeria.”
But he believes there is a way out of the quagmire.
“To address the situation, urgent and comprehensive efforts are needed to restore security and law and order to protect lives, property, and farmlands and to restore normalcy to traumatised zones, towns, villages, and communities to stabilize and restore economic fortunes.
“Education, health, social protection, and jobs for youth programs must be prioritized simultaneously,” he said.
Food inflation in Nigeria is around 40 percent, pushing the cost of basic items beyond the reach of millions of Nigeria. With insecurity in some of the country’s food belts affecting the prices of commodities, Adesina wants the government to fight it.
“Decisive and sustained efforts are needed to end insecurity, especially to save vast areas of the food belts of Nigeria in the North West, North East, and Middle ballots. The deployment of digital surveillance tools, drones artificial intelligence, and satellite imagery needs to be increasingly used to track and provide intelligence,” Adesina said.
“The development and the deployment of farm production protection guards and safe food transport corridors are worth developing. A more secure Nigeria will be a more food secure Nigeria.”
He said the AfDB and its partners are investing over $840 million in the development of what is called special agro-industrial processing zones in eight states.
“This will help Nigeria to process and add value to all of its agricultural commodities and establish critically needed platforms for becoming competitive in global agricultural value chains,” he said.
In June of 2024, a report says that, Around 11 million children, or one in every three children under five years of age, in Nigeria are experiencing severe child food poverty, making them up to 50 per cent more likely to experience wasting, a life-threatening form of malnutrition, a new UNICEF report reveals today.
For the first time, the Child Food Poverty: Nutrition Deprivation in Early Childhood report analyses the impacts and causes of dietary deprivation among the world’s youngest and most vulnerable, i.e. children under five years of age, in nearly 100 countries, and across income groups.
Globally, 181 million children under the age of five who consume, at most, two of eight defined food groups are considered in severe child food poverty and unable to sustain optimal growth and development in early childhood and beyond. Nigeria ranks among the 20 countries that account for almost two-thirds (65 per cent) of the 181 million children living in severe child food poverty.
Globally, four out of five children experiencing child food poverty are fed only breastmilk/milk and/or a starchy staple, such as rice, maize, or wheat. Less than 10 per cent of these children are fed fruits and vegetables. And even fewer, less than 5 per cent, are fed nutrient-dense foods such as eggs, fish, poultry, or meat.
The report warns that while countries are still recovering from the socio-economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the effects of growing inequities, conflicts, and the climate crisis have pushed food prices and the cost of living to record high levels. A recently published report by the Government and partners titled Cadre Harmonisé estimates that nearly 32 million people across 26 states of Nigeria are food insecure during this year’s lean season between June and August.
HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA hereby appeals to the Imo State’s government to acknowledge child poverty and destitution as a huge emergency that must be confronted and these crises of child poverty and deprivation would define whether there is a government that cares for the uplifting of the wellbeing and welfare of the citizens and especially the most vulnerable people such as children who are facing starvation, destitution and economic deprivation in Imo State.
Emmanuel Onwubiko is head of the HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA and was NATIONAL COMMISSIONER OF THE NATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION OF NIGERIA *
