Government at all levels and the people are now at home with the fact that there is extreme hunger and poverty in the land.
This is no longer a subject of argument, even though a large percentage of Nigerians insist that the three tiers of government are doing almost nothing to address these threats to human existence.
Most government agencies and those in the private sector take advantage of the unfortunate economic situation to ridicule Nigerians.
This was the case on Thursday 24 January, 2019, when the Nigerian Communications Commission(NCC) organized a Consumers Outreach Programme at the Mapo hall, Ibadan, Nigeria, obviously for the downtrodden and economically oppressed class in society, which is a far cry from the stakeholders forum, soon to be organized by the Commission at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja. This forum is strictly by invitation.
The posters containing information about the stakeholders forum pasted at different locations within the city prepared the grounds for the programme which suggested deceit. It assured those who planned to attend the forum that the telecommunications service providers would give out free Tee shirts, phones and lots more. This attracted a lot of people, but this was not the case.
However, airtime not exceeding N5,000 was given out to hundreds of people in attendance in a ''funny' way.
Without doubt, a majority of those that were at the venue of the forum, were there to collect food and the NCC made good use of this fact.
After hours of educating a bored crowd, the organizers in the first instance, distributed biscuits valued at N20.00 and ribena drinks-N50.00-in strange looking black nylons.
This attracted grumblings, murmurings and arguments, with a sizable number, making reference to destitutes who are always presented with similar items at the nearby ''Oja' Ba by pass.
One of the Deputy Directors of the NCC opined that the programme was organized to enable consumers know their rights and safeguard same. Sadly, those in attendance lamented that the acts of the organizers, one way or the other infringed on their Fundamental Human Rights.
Even though less than 10 people won cheap phones during the raffle draw, which the Deputy Director stated was facilitated by a consultant, this did not cut ice with the crowd.
When the NCC officials discovered that people had started leaving the hall, the Deputy Director reminded them of the launch packs that would be forfeited if they left.
Since most of them were hungry and were there to collect food, they decided to wait till the end of the programme.
The Deputy Director now instructed armed policemen to shut all entries to the hall and leave only the one near the high table open. The only entry was manned by armed policemen.
Immediately the programme came to an end, the impatient crowd surged towards the entrance manned by armed policemen, where they were handed austere food packs as they stepped out.
Pickpockets had a field day as wallets, phones and money were stolen.
The foregoing has been the lot of Nigerians, who attend programmes organized by government agencies, that seek to project the achievements of the present administration in various sectors.
In its leaflets, the NCC stated that one of its core objectives is to ''protect the rights of telecom consumers in Nigeria'', this is just as Nigerians have continued to pray ceaselessly to God to ease out those responsible for the evil, killings and hardships in the land.
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