Hunger Reigns in the Rice Republic; Where Is Yari?
By Citizen Bolaji O. Akinyemi
My greatest fear this time last year was a repeat of the 2023 Christmas attacks anywhere in Nigeria. That fear was captured in my article titled “PBAT: Are Christians in Nigeria Safe in 2024 Christmas?”
Any criminal occurrence within or around the same territories where those attacks happened in 2023 would have branded Nigeria as a nation where human life is valued less than that of animals. Indeed, it did, we are ending 2025 a “disgraced country” in trying to rationalise barbarism, some had even suggested that certain people valued their cows more than human beings.
Yet, in societies where life truly matters, dignity begins with respect—even for animals. In such places, cruelty to animals can send a person to jail. How then do we explain a society where public officials feast sumptuously on taxpayers’ money while the very people who funded that feast are dying in search of food?
This contradiction is not just cruel; it is demarketing for a government already perceived as brutal, even as many patriotic citizens struggle daily to redeem the nation’s image. Unfortunately, those closest to power, through their insensitive conduct, often make it seem like a journey to nowhere.
A Christmas of Hunger and Indifference
Mr. President, this Christmas 2025, like the Christmas of 2024—that Christmas—when I invited the First Lady to witness what Christmas had become for Northern Christians, especially those previously dismissed under the political balancing metrics of Muslim/Christian or Christian/Muslim tickets. These metrics were abandoned for the Muslim/Muslim ticket that brought you and Vice President Kashim Shettima to the Villa.
I analysed your “justification” for that choice extensively before the election. Later, I asked a painful question: Is there no Christian in Northern Nigeria fit to occupy positions traditionally reserved to pacify those being slaughtered for their faith?
In the last two years, conducts, least expected from beneficiaries of Nigeria’s “national cake” has become routine. They denied citizens access to the table, preferring that crumbs fall to ants rather than to the hungry masses.
It was an insult to national sensibility to see leaders feasting openly under cameras while the value of a human soul dropped to ₦5,000—and over 35 lives were lost to hunger-induced stampedes. When they should have been mourning, they were flaunting food. Not even the endless tragic headlines pricked their conscience enough to eat in private.
May Nigeria never witness another Christmas like that of 2024—a season marked by public heartlessness before a global audience. It was not just an indictment of your administration, Mr President, but of our nation.
Death for Rice
Sadly, criminality, hunger, and irresponsible leadership struck again in Ryom Local Government Area of Plateau State, where no fewer than 15 people were killed in their prime in 2024.
If Nigerians once hoped for “renewed hope,” no one imagined that human life would be priced at a modu of rice. Under your watch, sir, hunger has quietly reorganised our republic. We now live under what can best be described as a Rice Republic.
Is this still a federation, Mr President? A republic where access to rice determines who lives or dies?
If Muhammadu Buhari institutionalised hunger, your administration has inadvertently enthroned rice as the instrument of survival and control. Your praise singers will not tell you this.
At your inauguration, a bag of rice sold for under ₦30,000. By Christmas 2024, it crossed ₦100,000. Though the price of a bag of rice has come down, the purchasing power of the people makes no sense of the reduction. Our confrontation with rice has moved from bearable to unbearable—indeed, to unbelievable.
Low leadership productivity has institutionalised Fayose’s “stomach infrastructure” theory at the expense of mental capacity building and real development. Calls for rice distribution now attract desperate multitudes, many of whom have been stampeded to death. May Nigeria never see such Christmases again.
A Pattern of Avoidable Tragedies
The warning signs appeared as early as February 2023 at the Nigeria Customs Service under CG Bashir Adewale Adeniyi. A rice distribution exercise turned fatal; eight Nigerians died. What became of the investigations?
Life rarely matters in Nigeria—especially the life of the poor. The greatest sin in Nigeria is to be poor.
What happened at Customs reoccurred in Ibadan, where parents gathered for ₦5,000 promised to indigent children. A child died after being thrown over a fence in desperation. Similar tragedies followed in Anambra, Bauchi, Abuja, and elsewhere—always dismissed as “unforeseen circumstances.”
There was nothing unforeseen about them.
Irresponsibility is the only honest description. Must people be gathered in mobs before help is rendered? Ego—elite ego—is at the heart of this national tragedy.
Where Is Yari?
Christmas 2023, while Nigerians starved, political elites gathered around the President’s lavish table—27 governors, National Assembly leaders, all feasting—while communities in Bokkos and Mangu burned.
In the midst of that feast, the President reportedly asked: “Where is Yari?”
Did Senator Abdulaziz Yari wait a whole year to respond?
If so, he responded with rice—and responded well.
Yari may not have become Senate President, but politically, he read the moment correctly. He distributed rice widely—quietly, efficiently, and without casualties. Senators who had been worried about sharing 25 bags suddenly received trailer loads—up to 600 bags.
One thing was clear: it could be done without deaths.
If rice had a voice, it might well have answered the President’s question itself: “Present, sir—representing Distinguished Senator Yari.”
If you ate rice last Christmas courtesy of your senator, say it clearly:
Merry Christmas, Senator Yari.
A Final Word
Nigeria urgently needs a structured humanitarian policy that treats hunger as a predictable reality, not an “unforeseen circumstance.” The Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs must act.
And so, on behalf of Nigerians, I ask again:
Distinguished Senator Abdulaziz Yari, where is your rice for Christmas 2025?
Let everywhere be good.
Congratulations on your Steward of the Nation 2025 award by Project Victory Call Initiative (PVC Naija).
Your Excellency, Distinguished Senator Abdulaziz Yari, last year rice might have led the Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Abimbola Akeem Owoade to confer on you the chieftaincy title of Obaloyin of Yorubaland. This title is a high-ranking honour in the Yoruba traditional system, embodying responsibilities, more importantly the promotion of social welfare. To the Obaloyin of Yoruba Land the promoter of social welfare of the Yoruba Nation, again, I say where is your 2025 rice?
Fellow citizens, whatever our confrontations, I wish you a Merry Christmas—and a prophecy-fulfilling 2026.
Citizen (Dr) Bolaji O. Akinyemi is an Apostle and Nation Builder. He’s also President Voice of His Word Ministries and Convener Apostolic Round Table. BoT Chairman, Project Victory Call Initiative, AKA PVC Naija. He is a strategic Communicator and the C.E.O, Masterbuilder Communications.
Email:bolajiakinyemi66@gmail.com
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