Poverty alleviation is the only long-term antidote to looting

Ayo Akinfe

(1) Over the last 24 hours, the social convulsions in Nigeria have taken on a new dimension with people attacking the homes of rich politicians in search of food and basic consumer items

(2) In Ibadan, the home of a senator was attacked and 200 motorcycles carted away by the dispossessed

(3) In Calabar, a politician’s home was also ransacked with hungry mobs helping themselves to the contents of his well-stacked warehouse

(4) In Jos, the starving masses helped themselves to the contents of a Covid-19 warehouse, distributing the palliatives among themselves

(5) Similarly in Kano, a warehouse was raided with people carting away food items

(6) In Lagos, a lawmaker somehow had Covid-19 palliatives stored in his private warehouse. He said he planned to distribute them on his birthday. However, the masses celebrated his birthday in advance for him

(7) In Aba, vanity fuelled the protests as the Enyimba Mall was attacked because the people believed it was owned by the governor. You know why? Because there is a big billboard outside the complex with Governor Okezie Ikpeazu's picture on it

(8) In all these instances, the police and military looked on. They could feel the pain of the masses, so refused to fire on them. In some instances, security agents also participated in the sharing of the goodies

(9) No matter how many troops and policemen you deploy, you can never keep hungry mobs at bay. Nothing can make hungry people reasonable and the bony hand of hunger does not fear death

(10) I am not convinced this will serve as a lesson to Nigeria’s rulers because the me, me, me selfish culture had become too engrained in our psyche. A society at ease with itself is not one where people go about looting. Only economic empowerment can prevent repeated reoccurrences of the looting we have seen over recent day