WATCH: Tears As Hungry Nigerian Children, Elderly Women, Others Dehumanised As They Fight For Food Amid Hardship Under Tinubu Government
Amid the hunger ravaging Nigeria, residents of Madara ward in the Kontagora Local Government Area of Niger State, North Central Nigeria have been captured in a video struggling for food given as palliative by the government.
It could not ascertain the exact date of the incident, but the video on Wednesday scores of residents of the ward including children, women, and elderly struggling to get a share in what look like two 50kg bags of rice and beans.
Amid the struggle, the bags were ripped, spilling their content on the ground.
Like birds, desperate hungry women, men and children are seen struggling to pick scattered grains of beans and rice from the floor.
A cup of rice now sells for N250 to N300 while a small bowl of rice known as Kongo sells for over N2000. A Kongo of rice was about N250 before the All Progressives Congress came to power in 2015.
Amid the struggle, chaos and rowdiness, some old women were pushed to the ground.
There have been protests in some states against the current hardship, rising inflation and high cost of living which followed the removal of fuel subsidy and floating of the naira by President Bola Tinubu’s administration.
A voice in the video narrating the unfortunate incident is heard saying: “You see what is going on, fighting everywhere. Palliative! Palliative!! Palliative!!! Palliative for Madara Ward. Them dey steal the bag. They don steal the bag and they are running with it. They don tear it, you can see the palliative on the ground. See palliative for ground.”
“You see they are still fighting for the palliative. See the bag they are dragging. See what Tinubu don turn us to. Our palliative. Even old woman don fall. Mama, don’t kill yourself. See children for ground struggling for palliative,” the narrator said.
Nigeria’s naira on Wednesday dropped to a record low against the dollar on the official market.
Ibom Focus learnt that the naira now exchanged for N1980 to $1 on the parallel market and N1780 on the official market as the swift decline continued amid the government’s clampdown on currency speculators.
Senate President Godwin Akpabio earlier on Wednesday stated that all 36 state governors had received additional N30 billion from the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) to tackle the food scarcity situation in the country.
Akpabio added that the newly released funds for the state governors are different from their monthly allocation and urged them not to divert the funds to another use different from solving the problem of foodstuff scarcity.
