Hunger and Insecurity

Ezra Bature

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Ezra Bature

Tuesday 16 December 2025

Hunger and Insecurity

Night no longer sleeps in Nigeria.

It stands guard with one eye open,
listening for engines without plates,
for boots that do not knock.

Hunger wakes before the sun.
It sits on the table like an extra child,
counted but never fed.

Soup is stretched until it forgets its taste, garri argues with the stomach,
and tomorrow is cooked with hope alone.

We lock doors, yet fear enters through the radio, through WhatsApp voice notes, through names of towns we once knew.

Farmers abandon their ridges, hoes rust beside empty barns. The land is ready, but the roads are afraid.

In the North, markets close early.
In the South, mothers bargain with shame.
Everywhere, salaries arrive late,
or not at all.

Gunshots interrupt evening prayers.
Kidnappers price human breath.
A journey is now a gamble,
and home is no longer a promise.

Children learn silence early, how to eat less, how to ask nothing, how to sleep through fear.

We are tired of counting the dead
while the living starve.
Tired of speeches that do not stand watch, of assurances that cannot escort us home.

Nigeria, we are not asking for miracles. We are asking for mornings without fear, for food that does not require courage, for roads that lead somewhere safely.

Let security mean more than sirens.
Let leadership feel the weight of an empty pot. Let hunger and bullets
stop deciding who survives the night.

This is not poetry for applause. It is a record of breath still breathing,
still waiting, still hoping not to be forgotten.

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