There is no single industrial size store in Zaria that trailers are not queuing to deposit tones of foodstuff.
I am in my early 40s and I’ve never seen it like this. 24/7 continuous offloading and stashing of bought foodstuff from the hinterland of the North.
You know what, there are many places that these stores are built around Zaria and for more than a week now, such stores have been busy with one way offloading and stashing of grains like sorghum, maize, millet, soyabean and other grains that are the mainstay of the poor people’s food.
In fact, in one of such stores, I met trailer drivers fighting on whose vehicle should be offloaded first so that he’ll rush to load more from the hinterland.
This has been going on in various other places across Nigeria that have similar built storage facilities.
The right thinking members of our societies should know what this portends to.
To have a hint, I’ve been informed that now such foodstuff hoarders don’t even go to our numerous weekly markets around the North to buy and hoard.
They follow villages and mop up any foodstuff they can have access to at very high price that the villagers cannot resist.
In fact, a friend that engages in buying foodstuff from villages and convey them to cities to sell, told me many unknown people are contacting him to buy any remaining grains he may have.
Grains he told me, are becoming very scarce to get. He is into that business for almost twenty years now and he averred that he’s never seen any rush like this before.
Well, for now, I’ve seen hunger among my people. Flood washed away many farm produce and now a yet to be ascertained set of people are generously moping up grains from across our villages, then we should be alarmed.
I’m not saying we should all be moral panics but many things aren’t painting a good time ahead.
There are currently many theories explaining such alarming rush in moping up foodstuff and grains by the rich among us.
One of the most plausible theories is the one that affirmed the causative agent of naira redesign.
According to this theory, people that stashed billions of naira at their respective hideouts are now using such stashed funds to buy grains and choice plots of lands across Nigeria.
Hitherto, if this theory happens to be true, then those engaged have no difference with political thieves.
You stashed monies instead of investing them and now you’re pushing many poor Nigerians into abject hunger.
Whatever the case, we should be vigilant and task those in authority to clip this malodorous activity at its infancy.
This should be done because hunger is more a security breach than insurgency.
The time to stop it is now, not tomorrow.
~~~ Hashm Muhammad Suleiman, PhD