The hunger report that made me remember 1976

I was sitting on my veranda this morning with my Tribune and Guardian, the way I always do, when I saw the news about 16 million Nigerians facing hunger by January 2027. It is not a small number. It is the population of a small country. And I sat there and I remembered something.

In 1976, I was a young clerk in the Ministry of Education. The salary was small, but we could manage. My mother used to say, 'bi o ba ti ri, a o mo' , if things are going well, we will know. But that year, the price of garri doubled in Ibadan. People were selling their radios, their bicycles, just to feed. I remember a woman who worked in the ministry canteen, she had five children. She would bring her own bowl and eat the leftover eba from the staff plates. Nobody said anything. We all pretended not to see.

Now I am 65 and I see the same pattern. The difference is that back then, we had the cooperatives. We had the community savings. We had the church and the mosque pooling resources. Today, everything is individual. Everyone is fighting alone. My son, the one who is still finding his way, he tells me about the prices in the market. A tuber of yam that was N500 is now N2,500. And the minimum wage? It does not move. I am not saying we should panic. But I am saying we should remember that hunger does not announce itself. It creeps in. And by the time you feel it in your stomach, the damage is done. The Yoruba say, 'ile la ti n ko eso re ode' , charity begins at home. Let us start looking after our neighbours again. Before January 2027 arrives.