Rising inflation and declining salaries are making it difficult for many people to afford daily necessities, making life difficult for many.
The majority of low-income households have bemoaned the fact that they now spend almost all of their income on food, whose costs rise every day.
In the first half of 2023, Nigerians spent N61.08 trillion on food and other household goods and services, according to recent data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
The most recent Nigeria Development Update (NDU) report estimates that between January 2023 and May 2023, excessive inflation forced four million Nigerians into poverty.
This is happening at the same time as millions of Nigerians’ access to basic foods is being taken away from them by the country’s skyrocketing inflation, which is also making poverty rates rise.
According to NBS, 89.8 million Nigerians were living in poverty at the beginning of 2023. The number of extremely poor numbers would have reached 93.8 million by the end of May if the NDU had been correct and an additional four million had been tossed into the net in the first five months of the year. This amounts to around 43% of Nigeria’s total population of 216 million.
NBS reports that food inflation is currently over thirty percent. Beyond statistics, however, Nigerians experience the daily pain of growing costs everywhere.
Nigeria’s inflation rate was 22.41 percent on May 29, the day President Bola Tinubu took office, but as of October’s consumer price index (CPI) data, it had increased to 27.3%. When it comes to staple food baskets, the food price issue is the worst. For example, since Tinubu took office on May 29, rice prices have risen by almost 120%, with an average 50kg bag now costing N60,000 instead of N27,000.
The market analysis reveals that ordinary food prices have skyrocketed as the holiday season draws near. A 50kg bag of beans costs as much as N50,000, and a basket of fresh tomatoes that used to cost less than N20,000 now costs as much as N100,000.
The average civil servant’s salary, even with the N35, 000 wage award, is only enough to cover a small portion of what the N30,000 minimum wage was roughly five years ago. A bag of international parboiled rice cost approximately N22,000 in December 2019, but a bag of domestic parboiled rice sold for roughly N18,000. This implies that purchasing a bag of rice would require a minimum wage earner to spend almost 70% of his take-home pay.
To buy a sack of rice for his family, the minimum wage person today would require ninety percent of his pay plus wage award. Many Nigerians may be living in misery as a result of poor and stagnant income that cannot keep up with rising prices, as there have been little policy solutions to curb the price surge.
In an interview, Wale Kayode, a level eight civil worker and father of four, bemoaned the fact that his N86,000 income is no longer sufficient to support his family.
Kayode used to save aside the other N30,000 per month for savings toward rent, school fees, and transportation expenses, leaving his wife with a N30,000 upkeep allowance. The family has been having trouble filling a large gap left by the housing upkeep stipend, which hardly covers food expenses for a week.
Since the beginning of the year, the breadwinner said, his biggest concerns have been providing for his family and paying his rent and school fees. He said that since the gasoline subsidy was removed, the N35,000 pay award had only been paid once, and that the addition is insignificant in light of the fluctuations in the cost of necessities.
Speaking about his experience, Kayode revealed that he was forced to switch his children from a private school to a public one because he was unable to pay the expenses. He hoped that the economy would improve, or else he would have to move his family to the village.
Tina Amos, a factory worker at one of Lagos’ manufacturing companies, who makes N28,000 per month for a 12-hour workday, claimed she had to walk home with her coworkers every day after work in order to save money after eating at the office.
“I used to ride a tricycle to and from work when I first started working, and at the end of the month, I realized I had nothing left over. Since then, I’ve walked home with others and eaten garri, or cassava flakes, for lunch. Because we make biscuits, we have sugar. At the end of the day, if I should eat properly, I will borrow money to pay off obligations.
“Please help us and make things easier for us, government. Lack of healthy food is making a lot of my coworkers sick. While I wait to get admitted to a polytechnic, I work to save money. But my living expenses have eaten up all of my wages, so I’m not even able to save anything,” she begged.
Amaka Okafor, a mother of three who works as a shoe salesperson in Lagos, bemoaned the country’s economic climate, which makes it not only tough to break even but also slow business. She claimed that on certain days, despite making the drive from her house to the market, she would not record a single sale.
“Consider paying about N3,000 a day for transportation without making any sales to offset the costs. “How can a mother of three children meet her children’s needs and put food on the table when things are becoming unaffordable due to rising prices?” she questioned.
She claimed that because of the amount of deprivation in the nation, there are still no celebrations to mark the impending Christmas season, despite the holiday being quickly approaching.
Even though a lot of Nigerian families struggle to feed their families well these days, many of them simply focus on food. The dire state of the economy is causing an increasing number of people to beg on Lagos’s streets every day. When I got on a commercial bus yesterday, a grown man approached me and begged for food, saying he hadn’t eaten in almost two days, Okafor bemoaned.
Mercy Amos, a cleaner at a private school in Lagos, claimed that the rising cost of food and transportation prevented her from giving her three children nutritious meals with her N20,000 monthly take-home pay.
“My kids go to public schools, and I feed them whatever I can find, so they’re not getting enough nutritious food. My pay is so little that there is nothing left over after I deduct food and transportation. Moreover, my rent is about due; My landlord has reminded me already.
Neither the government nor the schools where I work have provided us with a pay award. The elimination of fuel subsidies is disastrous for us. I was unable to speak when my child brought up the subject of Christmas since I was aware of my financial situation,” she bemoaned.
Experts said that growing inflation is a major concern for many people. They said that rising costs keep making households poorer by undermining the value of real income and savings.
Wealthier households are hedging their savings by using foreign currencies, a tendency that has continued to exert pressure on the naira and exacerbate the inflation problem, while poorer households are finding it difficult to maintain balance.
They maintained that many Nigerians have suffered greatly as a result of the withdrawal of gasoline subsidies, the depreciation of the naira, insecurity, loss of purchasing power, and distorted foreign exchange markets.
Adewale-Smatt Oyerinde, the director general of the Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA), stated that more jobs will be created by the government if it fosters a business-friendly climate, which would ultimately lead to wealth creation.
Cowry Asset Management Limited’s Managing Director and CEO, Johnson Chukwu, also alluded to methods that employees can employ to get through this challenging economic period.
He says Nigeria has to increase agricultural productivity in order to increase food security. He stated that better infrastructure, communications, and transportation systems are required for the energy supply. He demanded that people have access to clean water, sanitary facilities, high-quality healthcare, and high-quality education.
According to the economist, broad-based economic growth was necessary in order to create jobs and provide targeted assistance to the most disadvantaged members of society. Some of the ways this could be done include subsidised housing, skill development programs, free basic education, and conditional cash transfers.
Chukwu counseled families to have several revenue sources and a backup source of income. Families should have an investment income stream that increases with interest, dividends, and capital gains, he also said.
Prof. Olalekan Aworinde, an economics expert at Pan-Atlantic University, stated that Nigeria’s inflation was rising quickly, a fact that would make life more difficult for the country’s working class citizens, the majority of whom were on fixed incomes.
According to him, Nigeria’s escalating inflation crisis would result in higher living expenses, a lower standard of life, decreased productivity, and more job losses. He declared: “People in Nigeria are experiencing extreme poverty as a result of their inability to keep up with the quality of living in the economy. You’ll find that folks are unable to provide for their basic needs.
“Those who are in employment will not be able to meet demand, and it is likely that they will fire some employees, which will result in job losses.”