In what can only be described as a dangerous descent into absurdity, the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security recently issued a circular instructing its staff to observe a three-day national fast and prayer session in response to the escalating hunger crisis ravaging the country.
The move later reversed after nationwide outrage revealed a level of incompetence at the highest level of a ministry that should be leading the charge against food insecurity, not retreating into religious theatrics.
The circular, dated June 11, called on staff to participate in fasting and intercessory prayers on three consecutive Mondays June 16, 23, and 30 seeking divine intervention to solve Nigeria’s deepening food shortage.
We as a newspaper report that at a time when millions of citizens are skipping meals, rationing food, or dying silently from hunger-induced diseases, it is nothing short of disgraceful that the federal agency in charge of food policy would turn to rituals instead of reforms, to sermons instead of strategy, and to faith instead of facts.
Let us be clear, hunger is not a spiritual curse, and fasting will not produce maize, beans, or yams. Hunger is a direct result of poor leadership, bad planning, insecure farming environments, dilapidated agricultural infrastructure, and gross underinvestment in food production and distribution.
The decision by the Ministry to spiritualise this disaster is not only irresponsible but deeply insulting to the millions of Nigerians currently struggling to feed themselves and their families.
In fact, it reflects the wider malaise of Nigerian leadership where rhetoric and religiosity are often substituted for rational planning and governance.
The implication of this kind of thinking is that policymakers can abdicate their constitutional responsibilities by deflecting blame to supernatural causes, rather than confronting the consequences of their own failures head-on.
It is even more outrageous when considered against the backdrop of staggering data. According to the World Bank, over 25 million Nigerians faced acute food insecurity in 2024.
The National Bureau of Statistics reported that food inflation has surged beyond 40 per cent year-on-year as of May 2025. In real terms, this means staple foods such as rice, garri, yam, beans, and oil are now unaffordable for millions of Nigerians. In rural and urban slums alike, families have been reduced to one meal per day, if any at all, with children suffering the most in terms of nutrition and physical development.
Rather than convening emergency summits, designing climate-smart agriculture policies, building irrigation systems, or securing farming zones from terror attacks, the Agriculture Ministry thought it best to impose hunger upon its own staff in the name of piety. This is not only backward—it is criminally negligent.
There is no shortage of land in Nigeria. There is no shortage of labour. There is no shortage of rainfall. What Nigeria suffers is a catastrophic shortage of vision, political will, accountability, and modern management.
Countries with fewer resources have achieved food sufficiency and agricultural exports. Israel, for example, has transformed its arid, desert landscape into an agricultural miracle not through prayers but through technology, policy continuity, and relentless investment in irrigation, desalination, greenhouse farming, and research.
The question then is: what excuse does Nigeria have? The country reportedly earned N688 billion in agricultural surplus in recent months, yet 11 million children are suffering from varying degrees of malnutrition.
This contradiction alone is evidence of a broken system. Farmers are being killed, displaced, or kidnapped in states such as Benue, Zamfara, Kaduna, Plateau, and Katsina.
According to a 2023 report by SBM Intelligence, more than 60 per cent of farmers in northern Nigeria have been forced to abandon their farmlands due to insecurity. The Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps confirmed that over 3,000 farming communities have been displaced in the last two years alone.
Yet, while blood is spilled on farmlands and granaries lie empty, our leaders gather in air-conditioned offices and prescribe fasting as the national solution. This is not just incompetence, it is betrayal.
Nigeria cannot afford this level of detachment. Our national security, economic survival, and population health all depend on our ability to feed ourselves.
A country that spends over $2.5 billion annually on food imports—despite having vast arable land—should declare an emergency on agriculture, not a prayer retreat. The time for holy ceremonies is over; what we need now is coordinated, science-driven, and private-sector-enabled food policy reform.
President Bola Tinubu’s recent procurement of 2,000 tractors from Belarus is commendable, but it is not nearly enough. What is needed is a total overhaul of the agricultural system—from inputs to market. Fertiliser distribution must be streamlined and depoliticised. Roads linking rural farming communities to urban markets must be repaired and expanded. Cold-chain storage must be invested in to reduce the 40% post-harvest loss currently costing the economy $9 billion annually. Extension workers must be recruited and deployed to train and support smallholder farmers.
Above all, security must be prioritised. No meaningful progress can be made in agriculture when farmers live in fear. Government must establish rural policing frameworks, deploy drones and surveillance technology, and collaborate with communities to restore safety in farmlands.
Let it be said clearly: fasting is not a national policy. Starving public servants cannot feed a starving nation. Governance is not guesswork. Ministries must be run by technocrats, not televangelists. Nigeria must reject the temptation to baptise failure with spirituality.
The hunger crisis is man-made, and it is only man through clear-headed, courageous, and coordinated policy, who can fix it.
The time to act is now. The time for prayers is always but never in place of planning. Nigerians do not need a spiritual warfare they need food on their table. They need leadership that can reason, not merely recite. If the Ministry of Agriculture cannot provide that leadership, then it must be overhauled.