18 hours Ago By Guardian Nigeria
SIR: Yesterday morning, I was in a rare prayerful mood and I began by playing the worship songs of American singer and pianist, Don Moen. His most popular track which understandably is the one in which he titled it as: “God will make a way”, turned out as my most favourite track for my morning devotion. The aforementioned song was a way of consoling myself about the possibility that millions of Christians preparing for 2024 Christmas celebration will do so without the traditional rice and stew.
Christmas this year is happening when the cost of living crisis has reached a frenetic height with the November inflation rate standing at 34.60%. Banks do not dispense cash and even electronic transfer mechanisms are poor.
Banks now sell cash to POS operators who now sell cash openly. The exact reason that has taken away rice and stew from the lunch tables of millions of this year’s Christmas celebrants is the unaffordable costs of rice. Proteins such as chickens, goats are extremely costly just as other essential food items such as tomato and pepper are not affordable.
An average bag of rice, which hitherto stood at less than N30, 000 just before President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was sworn into office on May 29th last year, is now N100, 000. Meanwhile the new minimum wage for the less than five per cent of Nigerians that are employed in the formal and informal sector is N70, 000. This means that for everyone who is earning the new minimum wage, there would be the challenge of being unable and incapable of affording a bag of rice.
The high insecurity also means that so many Nigerians who live in the cities cannot travel to the country sides due to the fear of the unknown. The fundamental cause of the imminent celebration of this year’s Christmas with no rice and chicken is poor leadership. The general economic climate is tied down to bad governance, lack of accountability and transparency, especially at the national and also at the sub-national levels.
The state governors are some of the most corrupt public office holders now. Professor Chinua Achebe of blessed memory saw all these coming many years ago when he said in his book: “The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership. There is nothing basically wrong with the Nigerian character.
There is nothing wrong with the Nigerian land or climate or water or air or anything else. The Nigerian problem is the unwillingness or inability of its leaders to rise to the responsibility, to the challenge of personal example which are the hallmarks of true leadership.” Achebe gave one illustration thus: “On the morning after Murtala Muhammed seized power in July 1975, public servants in Lagos were found “on seat” at seven-thirty in the morning.
Even the “go-slow” traffic that had defied every solution and every regime vanished overnight from the streets! Why? The new ruler’s reputation for ruthlessness was sufficient to transform in the course of only one night the style and habit of Nigeria’s unruly capital. That the character of one man could establish that quantum change in a people’s social behaviour was nothing less than miraculous. But it shows that social miracles can happen.
” When you see your Christian neighbours not able to share rice and stew as was traditionally done on other Christmas celebrations when political leaders were not as ruthless and corrupt as the present-day political leaders, please excuse their poverty of rice and stew. Emmanuel Onwubiko is head of the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA). Perhaps, when Nigerians elect a good president and humane governors in the nearest future, our nostalgically lovely and richly prepared, garnished rice and stew would stage a triumphant return to our lunchtime tables.
For now, let us enjoy our Christmas festivities the best way we can. Be happy. Emmanuel Onwubiko is head of the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA).
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