Crises Spices

I have an alarmist friend who believes we should all be building underground bunkers and stockpiling essential supplies for the “Long Night” ahead. He believes that the world is long overdue for another mass effect—a routine natural occurrence when nature re-corrects itself by shaving off the deadwood, holding back certain natural processes and resettles into […]

I have an alarmist friend who believes we should all be building underground bunkers and stockpiling essential supplies for the “Long Night” ahead. He believes that the world is long overdue for another mass effect—a routine natural occurrence when nature re-corrects itself by shaving off the deadwood, holding back certain natural processes and resettles into a new equilibrium.

Maybe he is right, maybe he is just another crackpot prophet of doom. But with the second coming of Trump already about to split the atom, and with the ghastly omen appearing on the Nigerian horizon, a chain-reaction likely triggered by yesterday’s declaration of emergency in Rivers State and subsequent suspension of embattled Governor Siminalayi Fubara, and Kano about to become a cauldron of iron and blood if two emirs are to hold parallel eid ceremonial processions, who’s to say?

Either way, the world will never be the same. The 70s witnessed widespread recognition of the world as a single, interconnecting whole. The 80s have shown that this whole is not operating as a self-sustaining system. In the 90s, the chickens came home to roost for one side of the same coin of geopolitical imperialist culture created by the aftermath of WWII.

In the 2000s, the world coalesced into a truly global village and in the 2010s, the pent-up pendulum of natural selection was completing its launch sequence for a kinetic showdown. In the 2020s, the showdown is in full swing.

In short, we appear to live in a world full of crises – manifesting itself in hunger, poverty, debt, conflict, statelessness and war, as well as in the accelerating degradation of the natural environment. And in Nigeria, there’s lots of spices poured into the pot… even more wahala kenan.

Even though the majority of these world events that credibly threaten the global status are in the Global South, the multipliers will reverberate throughout the Global Whole. A crisis in Rivers State, the capital city of Nigeria’s oil industry might put a dent on the fragile nature of the global economy. The countries under focus are home to just 10% of the world’s population but account for approximately 86% of all people in humanitarian need globally, 75% of displaced persons, 70% of people suffering from crisis or worse levels of food insecurity—and a growing share of global extreme poverty.

While Nigeria deteriorates… intense fighting broke out in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2023, following the collapse of a truce between the government and the armed group M23. This exacerbated a protracted crisis that had already exposed millions of Congolese to conflict, political tensions, economic pressures, climate shocks and persistent disease outbreaks.

The country entered 2025 with only a little less than the 25.4 million people in need of humanitarian assistance it began 2024 with—more than any other country on earth.

Niger Republic’s July 2023 coup has triggered political tensions with Nigerian and other neighbouring countries, leading to the withdrawal of international security assistance after the junta kicked out American and French troops from its territory. New sanctions and border closures have also severely limited the amount of nutritional aid and medical supplies entering the country. Public spending has also decreased by 40%, weakening key services.

In Mali, security and economic crises have left 6.2 million people in need of humanitarian support. The recent withdrawal of the UN peacekeeping force has raised safety concerns, especially of renewed fighting between the government and Tuareg armed groups in northern Mali. Already, armed groups are besieging towns and cutting off humanitarian access while half of the country is living in poverty.

The conflict in Myanmar has spread significantly since the military retook political power in 2021. In October 2023, three major armed groups resumed clashes with the government, putting state military forces under significant pressure and causing increased civilian harm. 18.6 million people in Myanmar are now in need of humanitarian assistance—nearly 19 times more than before the military takeover.

Burkina Faso is facing rapidly growing and spreading violence as the Burkinabe military struggles to contain armed groups. Roughly half of the country is now outside government control, with armed groups including Islamic State in the Greater Sahara and Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin blockading cities and towns and preventing residents from accessing basic goods and services.

The very young, bombastic military ruler of Burkina Faso, Captain Ibrahim Traore, has made some bold moves to confront these threats and has mulled a union together with the three other Sahelian countries facing ECOWAS and international sanctions for toppling democratic governments, to wit, Guinea, Niger and Mali.

Gaza entered 2025 as the deadliest place for civilians in the world. Residents are enduring the brutal consequences of the latest round of conflict between Israel and Hamas, which is being fought without sufficient regard for the international laws and norms built to protect civilians even in the most dire circumstances on the part of the Zionist regime in Israel.

Israeli forces began airstrikes and ground operations after Hamas launched a deadly ground incursion and rocket barrage on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking over 200 hostages.

Israeli operations have since caused severe destruction and widespread death and displacement throughout Gaza, killing more than 45,000 people so far, per official Palestinian reports. There was a truce brokered by Trump before he was even sworn into office, but that truce, which turned out to be a Trojan truce, is all but broken today.

In Ukraine, perhaps the most consequential of these crises in the global context given the fact that nuclear powers are facing down each other in this theatre, the Russians are making steady gains as much of the world’s attention has shifted to the conflict in the Holy Land between the Israeli brutes and the Palestinian guerrilla militants who are forced to resort to taking aim at soft targets because they lack the capacity to confront the fearsome Israeli mass murder machine and cannot do anything after seven decades of oppression and injustice. 

After the humiliation suffered by Zelensky some days ago, Russia is no longer facing a vast portion of NATO resources on its own and an end to the conflict is in sight.

We live in interesting times indeed—but that’s not necessarily a good thing. In fact, according to ancient Chinese wisdom, living in “interesting” times is a curse instead of a blessing. Living in interesting times means you will witness a lot of very interesting fireworks displays in the skies… but then the long night will persist and you have to deal with the fallout, something we can be certain of following the Rivers State debacle—terrible, horrifying fallout you might actually need to hide from in a bunker.

Ramadan Kareem.