Transformations and transfigurations occur easily in the theological and spiritual realms, but they seldom take place in the physical world.
Once upon a time, in antiquity, the town of Nazareth was thought to be accursed—until the advent of Jesus Christ to that obscure backwater. Saint Paul, a distinguished member of the Great Sanhedrin, the supreme Jewish legislative and judicial council in ancient Israel, was once a fanatical persecutor of Christians until he saw the light on his way to Damascus. Then he morphed into a zealous proselytiser.
We may yet, in the year of our Lord 2025, be witnessing an intriguing transfiguration of the Nigerian Senate and its leadership. Since his assumption of the presidency of the Senate, that pre-eminent rump of the legislative branch, the institution had distinguished itself by putting its official seal on whatever policies the executive branch brought before it, without bringing due scrutiny or diligence to bear.
It demonstrated gross insensitivity to the abject plight of Nigerians when it was inaugurated about two years ago. It elected for itself opulent appurtenances and perks of office to the chagrin and dismay of suffering Nigerians. This insensitivity was compounded by a fawning sycophancy towards the executive branch that verged on the sickening.
For good measure, the Senate, particularly its leadership, has been notorious for its misogyny, often hectoring and browbeating its female members for daring to stand up to its hubris.
A surprising shift in tone
Against this unwholesome and unbecoming deportment, it must come across to ordinary folks as a transfiguration of seismic proportion that the President of the Senate, Senator Godswill Akpabio, is now empathising with Nigerians who are hurting.
At the resumption of the Senate on Tuesday, October 7, 2025, following its recess which began on July 23, 2025, the Senate President declared: “Let us also heed the cry from the farms and the markets. Over 33 million Nigerians face acute food insecurity—a crisis demanding urgent legislative attention to agriculture, rural roads, irrigation, and mechanisation. Hunger cannot be defeated with words; it requires policy, budget and will.”
As a matter of fact, what the Senate President said was not new. As of August this year, several organisations, including the United Nations, had warned of the prospect of acute hunger and Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) in the country. The Cadre Harmonisé Food and Nutrition Insecurity Analysis, led by the Federal Government with support from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Food Programme (WFP) and other partners, had projected that 33.1 million Nigerians would face high levels of food insecurity. This is in addition to 1.4 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) and another 1.8 million children who are at risk of SAM.
It is heartwarming that, at least for once, the Senate leadership seems to show some measure of concern for and identify itself with millions of its acutely hungry compatriots. Anyone with a sense of fellow-feeling ought to be deeply concerned for the millions of Nigerians who go without a decent meal a day.
The deepening hunger and its causes
Not only are such famished Nigerians in deep despair, they are prevented from making meaningful contributions to the table of development. Their health is at risk, and some are liable to being recruited into criminality and banditry in order to survive. In late July this year, following the withdrawal of support from donors, a staff member of the WFP expressed fear in an interview with the BBC about the possibility of IDPs, who were hitherto supported by the WFP, walking straight into the embrace of Boko Haram insurgents who were prepared to welcome and feed them.
Of course, the reasons for this severe hunger and malnutrition are well known and documented. For nearly two decades, the North East has been a cauldron of Boko Haram insurgency. This insurgency, alongside other vile acts of banditry, kidnappings and genocidal killings, has since spread to other zones such as the North West and North Central.
By and by, Boko Haram begat not only splinter groups but fellow travellers such as ISWAP, LAKURAWA, ANSARU and MAHMUDA. The nefarious activities of these bandits and terrorists have made it excruciatingly difficult for farmers to access and cultivate their farms, resulting in food insecurity.
Even when farmers manage to access their lands, they are subjected to primitive and suffocating taxes imposed and exacted by these vicious bandits. Worse still, instead of incentivising genuine farmers by supplying them with fertilisers, seedlings and pesticides at subsidised prices and at the appropriate time, such inputs are often made available late in the farming season or diverted to phantom and bogus farmers.
The upshot of all these is that farming has become unprofitable. Some farmers, as a consequence, have migrated from cultivating sorghum and maize to perishables and vegetables. Those who persevere often sell their maize at harvest time to youths who roast corn by the roadside just to recover their investments.
In addition to these challenges, even where foodstuffs are available, most Nigerians cannot afford them. Following the devaluation of the naira, occasioned by its forced free-fall, the currency now commands lesser value than before, and inflation has eroded what remains of its purchasing power. This is not to mention the high cost of transportation, worsened by the withdrawal of fuel subsidy.
Furthermore, an army of millions of despondent Nigerians, largely youth, trudges the streets with no jobs, income or hope.
Towards a genuine transformation
It is salutary for Senator Akpabio to call attention to the plight of Nigerians from his bully pulpit. One is delighted that the Senate President is capable of such introspection and lofty thought. But the Senate, and by extension the House of Representatives, must work with the executive branch to encourage and enable farmers.
They should view the heightened insecurity in the country as a clear and present danger that must be addressed head-on and forthwith. The National Assembly must explore avenues of creating jobs that will meaningfully engage and empower our youth. It should also collaborate with the executive branch and state governors to address our acute infrastructural deficits in rural roads, housing, health and education.
That should be the ultimate transformation—not issuing platitudes or pandering to Nigerians who are suffering. Talk is, after all, cheap.
Dazang (OON), a retired Director of Education and Publicity of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), writes from Abuja via nickdazang@gmail.com