The authorities could do more to contain the scourge
First celebrated in 1979, the World Food Day is marked annually on October 16 to promote awareness of hunger and map out strategies for achieving food security. The official theme for World Food Day 2026 is “Innovate today. Nourish tomorrow” and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has called for global collaboration “in creating a peaceful, sustainable, prosperous, and food-secure future.” But beyond the fact that food is needed for survival and well-being, there is also a need for urgent intervention to avert a human catastrophe in the country. With Nigeria regarded as one of the countries where a high percentage of citizens live in extreme poverty, the 2026 International Day for the Eradication of Poverty which also holds tomorrow serves as another reminder on the need to do more to alleviate the suffering of our people.
In its 2026 Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) report released on Monday, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) said an additional 17.9 million Nigerians slipped into poverty between 2021 and 2024. With multidimensional poverty rate increasing to 38.7 per cent in 2024 from 33 per cent in 2021, Nigeria recorded the largest increase among the five countries that experienced a rise over their latest measurement periods. Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, Guinea and Kyrgyzstan were the other countries. The report said the increase reversed the progress Nigeria recorded between 2018 and 2021, when the proportion of people living in multidimensional poverty declined.
The global MPI measures deprivation across three dimensions: health, education and standard of living. Its 10 indicators include nutrition, child mortality, years of schooling, school attendance, cooking fuel, sanitation, drinking water, electricity, housing and household assets. A person is classified as multidimensionally poor if their household experiences deprivation in at least one-third of the weighted indicators. Co-produced by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), the report estimates that 90.1 million Nigerians were living in multidimensional poverty in 2024, compared with 72.2 million in 2021.
The federal government recently rolled out measures to lower the cost of living for Nigerians through fuel price modulation. The relief package includes a 30-day discount on petrol pump prices at the state-owned filling stations and a proposed ceiling of N1,350 per litre on petrol landing costs. But opposition parties have rejected the government’s argument that temporary, targeted measures offer a more sustainable response to the crisis. “What happens on Day 31? Nigerians wake up to the same brutal prices, the same punishing transport fares and the same rising cost of food. The government cannot manufacture relief for one month and expect Nigerians to applaud while the hardship remains,” the African Democratic Congress (ADC) Presidential Campaign Council Director of Strategic Communication, Phrank Shuiabu said last week while dismissing the measures as mere tokenism.
The federal government and authorities in the 36 states must indeed wake up to the reality of not only the growing gap between the rich and poor of the society but also the seeming hopelessness for a vast majority of the people in a nation blessed with enormous natural and human resources. Citizens must also begin to demand equity, fairness and accountability lest this deepening cycle of poverty continues.