Hardship no longer bearable

In Nigeria today, the citizens are currently navigating significant hardships due to economic challenges and policy deficiencies as paying bills or buying basic household needs like food, clothing and medical care have become a problem. Hakeem Gbadamosi reports on how residents of Akure in Ondo State are surviving at this critical time.

FOLLOWING the excruciating hardship of the nation’s economy that is terribly affecting Nigerians, many households have been feeling the brunt of the unsavoury economic situation and can hardly provide basic needs for their families. Having had to battle perennially rising price of petrol, food items and other essential items like drugs, the average Nigerian has become poorer owing to declining business opportunities.

The present economic situation in the country has made many homes adopt different survival measures, as businesses no longer thrive while the monthly take-home pay no longer takes an average worker home to pay for his family’s needs. One of these measures is to skip one or two meals daily.

Some residents of Ondo State, who spoke with Sunday Tribune, complained bitterly about the continued increase in prices of food items, which has made them to be unaffordable in most cases. While many of them complained about a sharp drop in the patronage of their businesses, civil servants among them lamented over the inadequacy of their small salaries which are not enough to buy the expensive food items.

A resident of Oba Ile in Akure North Local Government Area of the state, Mr. Farouk Oluwafikayomi, said the hardship being experienced by Nigerians is strange and alien to the common man, saying no average citizen can afford three square meals again.

Mr Oluwafikayomi said, as a civil servant, “my monthly salary is nothing to write home about, as we now spend heavily on foodstuffs. The prices of food items in the market have soared beyond normal. Yet the salary remains stagnant. I cannot remember the last time I bought clothes to wear.

“I resorted to farming as a temporary option to cushion the effect of this hunger. We now eat twice daily and, at times, once. My three children and their mother help on the farm. But this does not help matters.

“My wife, who teaches in a private school, does not earn much and our combined salary is not enough to feed us and pay our children’s school fees. Again, landlords in this area are not helping matters, as they increased our house rent by 100 percent.”

He, however, appealed to the federal and state governments “to find a lasting solution to this problem of daily increase in food prices. Our borders too should be opened while farming should be encouraged, rather than shielding these herdsmen who are destroying our farms and killing farmers in Ondo State.”

Another civil servant in the state, Olaoluwa Adetarami, said his family has reduced the ration of food they eat as part of the survival measure. According to him, with the reduced ration, he ensured that his family could still eat three times a day.  “Although, we are going through difficult times as a result of the present economic hardship, my family still eats three square meals per day, but not the same quantity as we used to do.

“I’m a civil servant, but I engage in farming where I produce most of what we eat. I plant crops like yam, cassava, cocoa-yam, maize, tomatoes, pepper, sweet potatoes and beans around my house and any undeveloped plot within my area,” he explained.

Explaining further that the current situation no longer allows excessive consumption of food, Adetarami said different people on a daily basis come to his compound to beg for food, money and other assistance.

“We really need the help of those in the corridors of power to think outside the box and think of a way to ameliorate this suffering because the suffering in the land is becoming unbearable,” he added.

Bolu Esho works with a private organisation, but, according to him, the current situation does not exclude private workers, as things had been getting worse since the removal of petrol subsidy.

He said: “The situation is getting worse by the day, considering what goes into feeding my family since the removal of subsidy on petrol and the attendant crises that followed.

“I work with a private organisation and there has not been increment in my salary, but prices of consumables are moving up geometrically every day. Life must go on and as a man, I must take care of my wife and children. Would I say because there is inflation, which has rendered my income inconsequential, my children should stop schooling? They have to keep moving forward irrespective of my financial situation. Three of them are in the university and I must pay their fees.

“But, with divine intervention, I am getting more patronage and this doused the pressure on me and my family. In the past, with about N70,000, we were alright for a month, but today, we are spending nothing less than N300,000 a month to get going. This is minus the school fees,” he explained, urging to reconsider its policies.

“The government must reconsider its policies and provide urgent support to farmers to mitigate the effects of this economic shock and make food abundant. If the issue of expensive foodstuffs is settled, life will be easier to live, as all other things will follow.”

Also speaking with Sunday Tribune, 53-year-old widow, Oladimeji Risqat, said the happenings in the country are very strange as she no longer makes enough from her petty business.  “I am only struggling to make sure we eat in the house. I am a food vendor but how many people engage us now?

“This is the hardest of all moments,” the mother of three continued. “Though I lost my husband about five years ago, the pressure of this period is too much. Nobody talks about savings anymore, but what to eat before you can think of saving anything.

“This country is turning to what I cannot describe; things are hard. To cook a pot of soup, you will rack your brain with a kilo of meat being sold for N5,500 and ponmo (cow hide) between N500 and N600 per piece.

“Beans is a no-go area. Bread is meant for the rich. I don’t really know when last I ate bread and how we are surviving. We now eat what see and not what we want to eat.

“We want to beg this present government to, please, attend to the skyrocketing prices of food items so as not to regret voting for them because we believe in Tinubu as a good leader but he seems to have failed to live up to our expectations for now.”

A 64-year-old commercial taxi driver in Akure, Olusanya Sunday,  said the worsening economic hardship has made life very difficult for him and his family. He said the high cost of things, including vehicle parts, pushed him out of business after his taxi developed a fault and could not afford to replace the engine due to its huge cost. The taxi, he disclosed, has been ‘parked’ at the workshop of his mechanic.

He said: “I was just managing to feed my family from the proceeds of the taxi; but when it stopped working, I had to join people to work at a construction site where they pay daily wages.

“Most times, they will drop me because I am old. The construction work is seriously taking its toll on me and affecting my health. But we need to eat. My children are in school and they follow me to site too whenever they are around. We feel this is better than stealing, but I am too old for the work.

“Life is really becoming unbearable in Nigeria now. We want to appeal to the state and federal governments to help those who don’t have anything doing in this country. Though, I am not a civil servant or a businessman, I feed my family of five children by doing menial jobs. We are surviving by the grace of God but most times we go to bed on empty stomachs”

For Udoka, who hawks household items on the popular Adesida road in Akure, “providing for my family is now a problem. Sometimes, all I get as gain after walking up and down the road is less than N500 at the end of the day. What do you expect me to buy from N500 with a wife and three children?

“People are passing through difficult times. A man living in my area, who wanted to commit suicide, was stopped by passersby late in the night. There is depression and cases of robbery is everywhere. People will soon revolt if the hunger and food prices keep increasing.”

A retired primary school teacher, Mr  Segun Alonge, while lamenting the effects of harsh economic situation in the country, said he has not been paid his pension since last December, claiming this has been affecting his family adversely.

“This is a real hard time for every household,” he began. “We find it difficult to eat, and people are dying because of rising prices of foodstuffs and other things. The biting economic hardship in the country is not helping matters,” he said.

Mrs Iyabo Onireti, who sells dried fish at Oja-Oba market,  agreed that the country’s galloping inflation has indeed dried up the resources of most Nigerians, expressing worry about the hunger ravaging many homes.

“You can see hunger written on people’s faces. We want the government to find a way of creating business opportunities for the poor. We want the government to set up a system that will benefit us. That is how to lessen our pains.”

Ibrahim, a fruits seller, hails from Jigawa, complained to Sunday Tribune, about how his business had plummeted as a result of low patronage.

“Walahi, I never sell since morning,” he lamented.” People are no longer eating fruits like before and the fruit is getting costlier every week. Before now, I usually made a sale of between N10, 000 and N15, 000 but now I hardly sell N2,000 worth of fruits in a day.

“Please, beg government for us. We are dying and no food to eat, because no money to buy food. My wife and children in Jigawa will expect me to send money, but there is no sales at all again.”

Benjamin from Benue State, who works as a security guard but engages in farming by the side, said the current economic situation has made nonsense of his salary. What he earns has become grossly inadequate, including other benefits.

“We have no options; we stick to the job despite knowing we are underpaid. The government needs to do more to support farmers like me and workers in the private sector,” he said.

Speaking on reasons prices of foodstuffs have been going up, Dr Nelson Nwaneri, an agriculture expert, attributed the hike in prices of agricultural goods and services partly to the hike in prices of seedlings, other agricultural inputs and removal of fuel subsidy.

According to him, “The recent hike in prices of seedlings and agricultural essentials is a devastating consequence of the fuel subsidy removal, which has unleashed unprecedented inflationary pressures on Nigerian farmers.

“The astronomical increase in prices has made it impossible for farmers to sustain their farms, leading some of them to abandon the farms. Food security crisis looms if government fails to respond to the situation adequately,” he warned.

READ ALSO: Police arrest 40 over looting, violence in Borno protest