Hunger

Hunger starts off politely. It greets you with an early morning hug and a kiss which is soon followed by nastiness if food does not appear. Man muss wack afterall. The older people resort to lamentations and philosophy when hunger pangs strike them at a time their fridges and pockets are empty but the babies have not read that memo. They just cry, making sounds designed to go straight to the brain of an adult and propel them to action. When parents feel impotent in the face of hunger, frustration rises and actions become unpredictable. In the midst of the painful anger the adults get that epiphany of torment: someone somewhere in this town has enough leftovers to feed my family.

People will procrastinate if they can get away with it, so nature makes sure there is no opportunity to, ‘forget to eat’ or ‘forget to feed the baby’. The world stops till that food goes into the mouth.  Various countries quote between 20 to 40% of household food that goes to waste. That is not adding the percentage of farm produce that rots away after harvest or gets intentionally burnt so as not to flood the market with food and upset the price structure.

In the abundance of water, the fool is thirsty says Bob Marley but the hungry may disagree. They do not have access to food. They are not so foolish as not to know they are hungry and neither are they so dumb that they cannot guess which part of town has well stocked fridges. They are wise enough to known that they cannot just turn up at a house and bang on the gates asking to be let in so that they could have dinner with the rich guys. Na today?!

¹⁹ “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. ²⁰ At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores ²¹ and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.

Hunger can get so bad that people migrate from their homes to go and live illegally outside the gates of the rich in expectation of a few crumps. This new location guarantees nothing as the parable told by Jesus clearly shows. Death comes to take away the starving beggar on a chariot with space for two. The rich man too is taken but the food is left behind.

Hunger was meant to be a beautiful thing. It is a most gentle reminder that it is time to eat. This prevents people from wasting away. People always need to be reminded to do things, even paying the bills for what they have purchased. The gentle reminder is always followed by the bailiffs who come looking for property they can confiscate. Hunger has its own metabolic bailiffs that eat away at the body’s stored fat if there is no food in the stomach. This is a painful process and the individual starts to lose weight.

The world of leftovers is a strange one. Humans work so hard for food then throw it away. Chop-remain, is what the village people call it. There is a stigma attached to eating the leftovers of others but when hunger ‘catches you’ all stigmas are forgotten. Hunger is democratised in Nigeria. The boys of Bornu state experience it in the same way the girls in Calabar do. Once that fire burns, there is no tribal discrimination in choosing food to douse the flames and pangs. For the hungry lad in Borno who prefers to eat his own type of food, preferences melt like wax under the thermal glory of hunger. Anything will do, from the Amala and Ewedu from the West to the Afang soup of the East, he go rush dem. Apart from the ‘catching , Nigerian hunger sometimes joins forces with the hot sun and greedy mosquitoes to beat Nigerians. Hunger beating you is both a physical, psychological and spiritual abuse. The lashes are lavish and make the victim cry out loud, (usually to God), asking why they were born in this country and why their parents no get moni? Next comes the raining of curses on the heads and graves of everyone who has ruled Nigeria till date. The lashing intensifies despite the cries.

Suddenly the object of the hungry man’s hatred turns up and throws some bank notes at him and he smiles, grabs the money and runs off to buy that eba so that belle go gauge. It is election time after all.

It is impossible to discuss National hunger without a mention of Politics and Leadership as the agricultural policies and investments lies in the hands of the government and those Civil Servants that should be serving the hungry with plates of food. Anyone in charge of any local government area, State or Country should no longer feel at ease when they are in possession of the information that there are citizens under their watch going to bed hungry; that is with empty stomachs, fridges and wallets. Just what is the prestige of presiding over starving people whose brains are being burnt up for metabolic fuel? Where would National development come from when the people are in survival mode?

A 15 car procession of a governor speeding past hungry Africans on the way to the airport is an absurd curse rather than a prestigious show of strength. That is like meeting a finely dressed man out in the streets with a $40,000 watch and his kids are crying for bread at home. It would be impossible to respect such a father. The truth of the matter is that the leader of the starving is really starving, no matter how much he has in his wallet. The people may be starved of food and dignity but the leader is starved of his humanity. Ask the leader about this he would reply, ‘did they tell you my children are starving? Second bass jare!’