OMOTARA L.E. FAGBUYI urges the Lagos State government to invest in proactive emergency preparedness
Lagos, a city of more than 20 million people, is the nerve centre of Nigeria’s commerce and culture. Its establishment as a separate state in 1967 gave it a dedicated administrative framework and laid the foundation for the mega-metropolis that now drives much of West Africa’s economy. Behind Lagos’s coastal glamour, however, lies a less visible dependence on
inland roads and farms and crises hundreds of kilometres away can quickly expose how closely this Atlantic city is tied to the regions that stock its markets.
Between June 13 and 15, 2025, marauding gunmen stormed Yelewata and neighbouring
villages in Benue, Nigeria’s ‘food basket’. About two hundred residents were killed, farmlands and barns were incinerated, and thousands fled from their homes. A resident, Shinku Moses
lamented ‘I lost eight persons, brothers, wives and children’. The carnage was Benue’s worst since 2018 and is fresh proof that bullets fired up-country ricochet into the wallets of Lagosians, because within 48 hours, the shock from the attacks had reached markets in the
south, particularly, Lagos State.
A Nigerian based financial news digital platform, Nairametrics’ June survey recorded that staple food prices in major markets including Mushin, Mile 12, Oyingbo, and Daleko markets, had increased by over fifteen per cent. One trader complained, “We are seeing transport fares
double because of fuel hikes and road issues, especially coming from the north. It’s affecting everything”. In just 72 hours, prices of dry onions had skyrocketed from N85,000 to N100, 000,
a 17.65 percent jump. Market stakeholders blame the hike on several reasons including
seasonal scarcity, road insecurity and, above all, the significant crisis in states where the bulk of food commodity is sourced including the recent attack in Benue State. This suggests that though Lagos may be far removed from Benue in physical distance, it is not immune from the
economic shock waves occasioned by the incessant insecurity incidents in the North.
Benue State supplies over 70 percent of Nigeria’s soybeans and hosts some of the largest food
markets in Nigeria. Zaki-Biam for instance, often described as the world’s largest open-air yam market, loads about over 200 truckloads of tubers daily, alongside other staple food products
including rice, citrus and cassava which are deployed all over the country, especially to the south. Yet, insecurity is squeezing this bounty as a recent risk study show that every one-percent rise in local violence in Benue’s crop output fall by 0.21 percent and livestock output by 0.31 per cent. In a country already grappling with a national food inflation of 21.1 percent
Year – on-year, each additional percentage point adds roughly ₦55 billion to household food budgets and a painful blow on about 133 million Nigerians who currently live in
multidimensional poverty. Even in relatively prosperous Lagos, where residents already spend more than 40 per cent of income on food, no one is insulated from the ripple effect of escalating food insecurity in Benue State.
This chronic insecurity is costing far more than money; it is costing lives. Benue State University Teaching Hospital overwhelmed by casualties from the Yelewata raid ran out of blood and
issued an urgent appeal for blood donations. In the same vein, damaged boreholes vandalised during the attack forced survivors to draw from rivers and unprotected wells which are ideal
breeding grounds for cholera. Lagos State itself experienced a cholera outbreak in June 2024, after 324 suspected cases were reported within six days. Meanwhile, The United Nations
Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warns that recurrent cholera epidemics across Nigeria pose substantial health risks especially for children.
Indeed, women, children and older people are often hit the hardest in most crises. In Nigeria, women form the backbone of the trading ecosystem, about 70 percent live
and work in rural communities and roughly three quarters run the petty trade stalls that keep local markets alive. When violence such as the recent attacks in Benue State destroys harvest and freezes commerce, these women traders and their families who are already living on thin margins, confront new layers of hardship and poverty. Under such strain, the sudden loss of
cash-flow quickly cascades into hunger, school dropouts and domestic abuse. In May 2025 alone, the National Human Rights Commission’s dashboard recorded 3,361 cases of domestic violence and 1,152 sexual-violence incidents nationwide while the United Nations Population
Fund estimates that 1.7 million Nigerian women now require urgent reproductive health care.
Migration and the subject of population management present another pressing concern. While Nigerians have always drifted to greener pastures especially to booming cities like Lagos, today’s flow is less driven by aspiration. It is more often a matter of survival, turbo-charged by
violent attacks, chronic unrest and a bruised economic shock. For instance, the recent displacement numbers recorded by the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA)
counts more than six thousand people from the current Benue assault, while the International
Organization for Migration’s (IOM) April assessment puts the total number of internally displaced people in North Central and North-West Nigeria at 1.3 million, with 38 per cent of them from Benue. Many of these individuals typically head south, drawn to Lagos and lured by the promise of work or the hope of shelter with distant relatives, yet a heartbreaking
proportion often end their journey sleeping under the bridges or squeezed into the city’s sprawling slums.
Geography is destiny only when it is properly insured. Lagos thrives by harnessing the opportunities that chance and shoreline handed it, but that same openness leaves the city exposed to the tremors from the hinterlands. Its distinct cosmopolitan confidence, so different
from up-country states, can become a seductive illusion that breeds a false sense of security.
Just like the gunfire that echoed across Yelewata recently reverberated through major
markets in Lagos State by Monday morning, if unchallenged, will find its way into the hospital
rooms, inflation charts and crime briefings across Nigeria’s commercial capital. Treating up- country mayhem as someone else’s tragedy is a luxury the city can no longer afford. What, then, needs to be done? I think three modest reforms can potentially narrow the gap between warning and response. First, Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA)
could adopt a pre-cleared alert protocol that rolls out localised and verified updates on up-country crises within minutes. The agency already issues flood warnings through the 112 systems and draws on the Lagos State Residents Registration Agency’s (LASRRA) database, so the infrastructure is largely in place. Second, the state needs to assemble a north-to-south
risk tracking dashboard that stitches together daily police reports, real-time commodity prices and weekly displacement snapshots. With this intelligence, Lagos can pre-position food
reserves, beef-up transport policing and subsidise haulage in markets before panic-fuelled prices spike set in. National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) multi-state hub could potentially supply much of the raw data. Third, mobilise trusted foot soldiers of the informal
economy including the market women associations, transport unions, mosques and church networks. They have the reach and can relay the same verified messages offline and can overcome misinformation at grassroot level. This can be achieved by using the very networks the National Orientation Agency (NOA) and National Cooperative Development Corporation
(NCDC) relied on during COVID-19 pandemic to overcome misinformation.
The question is no longer whether Lagos chooses to treat attacks in Benue and beyond as
distant thunder, or as a siren warning of its own exposure. The city can invest in clearer roads, stronger public health systems, proactive emergency preparedness, or continue to budget for
the next panic-driven market price surge. In a megacity fed by hinterland harvests and
highways, the cost of shortsightedness is already quoted in today’s staple food prices and compound interest starts tomorrow. History rewards cities that prepare, not those that merely
pray, Lagos must choose foresight over regret.
May all the bereaved families in Benue State, including residents like Mr Moses, find comfort.
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