The food crisis in Nigeria is hitting hard and it's getting out of hand!

I remember when I was in SS3, my Biology teacher used to have interesting conversations with us between his classes. He did that deliberately so that I would not get bored or feel sleepy. And for someone like me with a very low attention span, I was always very attentive and hooked. I paid attention in his class for this very reason. During one of those conversations, he talked about how, as a man in his late forties, he struggles to provide for his family, despite the fact that it's just him, his wife, and his little daughter. he didn't tell us this so that we'd feel pity for him or perhaps ask our parents to help him with some money. He did this so that we'd learn from his mistakes. He's always been very keen on advising us to focus on our studies, have fun, but avoid unnecessary distractions while learning valuable skills that will help shape our future.

Part of the things he told us about was how he couldn't even afford to get fresh tomatoes and pepper for himself most times. He would go deep into the market to buy those rotten tomatoes and peppers, with maggots and all sorts of things. This way, the family would have something to make stew with, or perhaps just make a meal, because tomatoes are quite pricey.

At first, these things might sound like ordinary examples of someone simply trying to cut costs. But the more I thought about them, the more I realised that there was something much bigger behind them. Among other things, part of what I witnessed him doing was fetching the water from the air conditioner in our classroom so he could sell it to people who needed it. He even fetched the treated tap water and stored it in a keg to take home every day so that they would not have to spend extra money on sachet water to drink.

He's not a poor man. Neither is he suffering. He's just an average man trying to cut costs and survive in this bleeding economy.

I didn't talk about his experience here just because I felt like talking. I used him as an example because he's just like every average man in this country trying to survive as well. And that is where the thought really begins to sink in. If an average man could be going through all of this, then how much more the poor masses? How much more the homeless and the helpless?

Each day, I wake up as a grateful soul because, as a child who was raised by a single mom, I have never had a reason to worry about where my next meal would come from. I have never had to hustle or worry about money or food.

When I'm in traffic sometimes, I see kids younger than me, and some even my age mates, running after vehicles just so that they can sell their goods.

I see people begging on the streets, and it saddens my heart because a part of me wishes I could take them out of that situation.

There are even homes with both parents present and working, yet they still struggle to put food on their table. This isn't even a matter of comparison. It's me trying to talk about how bad the economy is. Fuel prices are almost ₦1,600, making food prices twice as expensive. By December of this year, the price of a bag of rice and other food items could even quadruple. This is just so sad and terrible.

The President's wife talked about a business idea, suggesting that akara and corn can be sold, saying it's enough to put food on the table.I get the fact that she was trying to advise that we get our hands into doing something productive instead of just sitting around and begging, yes. But that could also be seen in another light. When a man earning a salary of ₦500,000 is struggling to provide for his family of three or four, how much more an akara seller?

Let me even talk about university students. Lots of students go to school these days without any foodstuff or food items with them. They basically survive by begging relatives and begging friends. Some of them might even go on a hunger strike for two days just because they know that their parents do not have the money to afford whatever it is that they are asking for, and they do not have that revenue, so they don't want to disturb their poor family. Boarding school students are not exempted from this either.

A lot of them often have issues like constipation, indigestion, and bloating because they are often fed tiny quantities of food and bad or spoiled food, since the school cannot also afford good-quality meals for their children.

I'd say that I should be grateful. You should be grateful. And I actually am.But how much more does this terrible and bleeding economy want to extend?

I think what we need is not just another reminder to work harder. We need to start asking bigger questions about how people can earn better, how small businesses can survive, how young people can gain useful skills, and how education can lead to real opportunities instead of becoming another financial burden. The little things matter too. A skill learned today can become an income tomorrow. A person taught how to make, create, repair, sell, or build something can eventually teach another person. One opportunity can open the door to another.

Maybe that is where we can begin, not by pretending that everything is fine, but by creating more ways for people to become financially independent and giving them the support and opportunities to actually succeed. Because a country should not only teach its people how to endure difficult times. It should also create an environment where they have a genuine chance to rise above them. Perhaps, maybe this is what the First Lady was trying to say. Perhaps she was simply encouraging people to start from somewhere, to be productive and make use of whatever opportunities they have. And maybe her words came across differently from how she intended them. Because, in a way, that is exactly what my Biology teacher was doing. He was cutting costs, finding ways to make things work, and doing whatever he could to provide for his family. Yet, even with all of that, the reality of the economy still weighed heavily on him. So maybe the conversation shouldn't end with whether people should work or not. Maybe the bigger question is this: How do we build a country where hard work, resourcefulness, and small beginnings can actually lead to a better life?