NIGERIANS AND THE POLITICS OF STOMACH INFRASTRUCTURE
NIGERIANS AND THE POLITICS OF STOMACH INFRASTRUCTURE Nigeria's political conversation has increasingly been shaped by a simple but profound reality: people must survive before they can dream about tomorrow . For the politician standing before a crowd, the language of development may be roads, bridges, electricity, schools, hospitals, industrial parks, digital infrastructure and economic reforms. But for the ordinary citizen listening from the grassroots, another set of questions may be more urgent: What will my family eat tonight? How will I pay my child's school fees? Where will I get money for transport tomorrow? What happens if somebody falls sick? This is the political environment in which the expression “stomach infrastructure” has become deeply embedded in Nigerian political vocabulary. It is a phrase that captures the politics of immediate material relief: food, cash, gifts, transportation assistance, household items, employment opportunities and other forms of di...