Hardworking Nigerians Deserve Food on Their Tables, Says Yari Amid Economic Hardship Debate

The Director-General of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council, Abdulaziz Yari, has asserted that hardworking citizens should not go hungry, arguing that the physical presence of food items in markets implies that those with financial means can feed themselves.
​Yari made the remarks on Friday during an APC rally in support of President Bola Tinubu’s 2027 re-election bid, held at the Godswill Akpabio International Stadium in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State.
​While acknowledging that economic hardship exists across the country, the former Zamfara State governor drew a distinction between scarcity of goods and affordability, challenging the narrative of absolute food scarcity.
​”Let me ask a question here. Akwa Ibom people, from where I came from, we have food in the market,” Yari told the crowd. “I don’t know, in Akwa Ibom, are there any persons who took their money to the market and found out there is no rice? Are there anybody with money in his pocket, go to the market to get foodstuff and say that there is no foodstuff in the market?”
​He maintained that true hunger constitutes a total absence of food commodities, adding: “If there is no food in the market, that is what we are calling hunger. But anyone who is not a lazy person, definitely he will have food on his table.”
​Yari’s comments arrive amidst mounting public anxiety over soaring food inflation and the general cost-of-living crisis, which has taken center stage in political discourse ahead of the 2027 general elections.
​The exchange echoes a similar debate sparked on October 24, when President Tinubu, speaking at the APC campaign flag-off in Kaduna, blamed past opposition leaders for the nation’s economic woes, stating, “I hear my opponents talking about hunger. Who created it? They did.”
​The ruling party’s defense has drawn sharp rebukes from the opposition. African Democratic Congress (ADC) presidential candidate and former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar recently dismissed the administration’s claims as “delusion,” attributing current hardships directly to government policies such as the petrol subsidy removal and naira devaluation.
​Similarly, political critics have insisted that the federal administration must take full accountability for alleviating poverty and managing macroeconomic pressures rather than deflecting blame onto previous regimes, setting the stage for a heated electoral contest over economic governance.