The Concourse – 16.09.2026
Abraham Maslow on our roadsides
By Soney Antai, serial award-winning columnist
Long before 1943, when Abraham Maslow propounded his five-tier pyramid hierarchy of needs, human beings knew that their greatest and most foundational needs were food (including water), health and shelter. Maslow could not help but agree, as he placed those three, alongside rest and warmth, at the very base of the pyramid he constructed. Physiological needs, he called them. Thus, the other tiers rest on these primary needs.
From his pristine forays into fruit-gathering in the wilds to the genetically modified foods of today, man needs food for survival. As for shelter, even the so-called caveman, it appears, discovered caves as places of refuge, and why not? The cave provided a roof over his head and offered some measure of security. For his health, roaming the wild, eating natural foods unpolluted by inorganic fertilisers and man-made contaminants, and deploying his raw physical strength in virtually all his activities kept him healthy.
But, all argued and concluded, food sits atop all of man’s needs like an emperor. That is so because if you do not feed well, you will not have the strength to build a house or even stay healthy.
With the excruciating economic situation Nigerians are facing, or have been compelled to endure, it is increasingly becoming difficult for many to find wholesome and affordable food on a regular basis. In many cases, even when food is available, it is inaccessible because it is unaffordable.
Data from the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reveal that nearly 35 million Nigerians risk facing acute food insecurity. Those projected to experience less severe forms of hunger are not included in that number. The situation is said to constitute one of the largest hunger crises globally.
The situation in the North of the country is said to be even more critical because of the harrowing insecurity there. In fact, more than 17 million people across northern states—which have, since the advent of Boko Haram, assumed the character of a Wild Wild Zone—are experiencing crisis or emergency levels of hunger.
In the South, where insecurity is not as acute as its mostly ideologically driven version in the North, hunger is no straggler; neither is it a stranger. Let us take a sampler.
In Akwa Ibom, where much is being invested in such elitist ventures as the hospitality industry and aviation, there is hardly any major road, street or avenue with considerable traffic whose sides have not been taken over, or threatened by, food vendors.
Mention Aka Road, at both ends; IBB Way by Abak Road; Ikot Ekpene Road by Ikpa Road and Itu Road; Abak Road by Idoro Road; Oron Road by Udo Udoma Avenue and Ifa Ikot Okpon Road, among others. These are spots where one finds heavy street trading. And what wares are mostly on display? Food items!
What does this tell us, and why is this happening at this depth now?
The Nigerian masses are stuck at Maslow’s base of the pyramid. They are barely breathing; barely surviving; barely progressing.
A country that cannot feed itself cannot defend itself. The situation is even worse where citizens feel excluded from governance, and where their rulers are living large at their expense.
What does a president, vice president, governor, minister or commissioner who, before attaining office, could not afford two functional vehicles, do with a convoy of several or dozens of vehicles? Why create offices for their wives when they know such offices are alien to the Constitution they swore to uphold?
The masses’ all-consuming struggle to survive could be ameliorated if the government went after the sponsors of terrorism in the country. The Federal Government can no longer afford to pretend that it does not know the sponsors of the sustained killings across the country.
If farmers were farming as they did before the terror madness; if, even after it started, critical government officials were not complicit, terrorists would count their teeth with their tongues, knowing that they would not be spared when caught.
There is, therefore, an urgent need to rein in the sponsors of the bloodletting and create the right atmosphere for farmers to return to the farms.
The subnational governments, for their part, need to develop farmlands managed by experts selected primarily because they possess the knowledge and capability to run such farms, without unnecessary political interference. They can subsidise power to boost agricultural and economic production, while also developing affordable transportation systems to ease the movement of food items within their domains and beyond. These and more would enable more Nigerians to advance beyond Maslow’s first tier of the hierarchy of needs.
■Oron-Uyo Road: Many Lakes to Cross
Going to Oron last Saturday to attend a funeral, I was compelled to recall Jimmy Cliff’s Many Rivers to Cross—only that, on this occasion, I would read “rivers” as “lakes”.
The recollection came when we left the largely good Nsit Atai–Okopedi stretch of the road leading to Oron town.
At Atiabang Nduong, about 200 metres from the country home of a former No. 2 state legislator, there, in full yawning spread, lay a group of three “lakes” that folks could mistake for potholes. At the border between Uruting and Uya-Oro Ube was another one.
As one approached Uya-Oro, there was a sea of muddy surface stretching for more than a hundred metres.
I had intended to share some of what my colleagues were saying, in utter anger, about what they saw on that road. But, for the good health of those “lakes”, I shall spare them. Instead, I share a stanza from Jimmy Cliff’s song: Many Rivers to Cross:
And I left my home in the islands
Bound for the town
And I’m down and out in this old city, oh Lord
It’s been hard, hard, hard going
And I thought I’d find peace somewhere
Instead of pain and sorrow
And my tears they’re falling down like rain
Many rivers (read lakes) to cross,
And I can’t seem to find my way ov er.
Wandering, I am lost,
As I travel along the white cliffs of Dover.
Many rivers to cross,
And it’s only my will that keeps me alive.
I’ve been licked, washed up for years,
And I merely survived.