The times are hard and the pains appear to cut across the entire spectrum of the Nigerian society. From civil and public servants to those who are engaged in private business, the mantra on every lip is that “life is tough,” as Buhari government is grappling with turning around the wobbling economy inherited from the Jonathan administration.
In most homes, the culture of waste has suddenly become a taboo. Only recently, a mother was reported to have beaten her daughter into coma for “wasting” the little garri she had reserved for the whole family. It took the quick intervention of neighbours, who rushed the little girl to the hospital, to save her life.
From Lagos to Maiduguri and Katsina to Port Harcourt, it is tales of lamentation. The picture of how awful life has become for many Nigerians was captured in a mild drama that played out in Igede-Ekiti, headquarters of Irepodun/Ifelodun Local Government Area, Ekiti State, where a secondary school teacher allegedly stole a pot of amala (a yam flour delicacy) from a neighbour’s apartment.
But rather than make a show of the incident, the owner of the amala delicacy demonstrated perfect understanding. When she discovered that the woman and her children were eating the stolen amala with ordinary palm oil, she went quietly into the house and fetched the alleged thief the soup with which she and her hunger-stricken children ate the amala.
A neighbour who witnessed the incident, said: “It all happened at about 1.30 pm on Sunday when majority of the residents had arrived from their various churches. The poor teacher had been unable to go to church because of her economic condition.”
For the woman and indeed most civil servants in Ekiti State, the non-payment of salaries for months has exposed them to serious hardship. The problem, which started in December 2015 when most of the civil servants could not celebrate Christmas with their families, has worsened as most families are now enmeshed in misery.
Before the Igede incident, a primary school teacher had committed suicide in Aramoko-Ekiti because the non-payment of salaries stalled the repayment of a loan he had taken while the interest on the loan piled up.
Apart from workers who are in active service, retirees in the state are also owed a backlog of gratuities and monthly pension. Many workers in the state are “dying by installment” while there is yet to be any positive signal from the government as to when the crisis would end.
Less than two years after Ayodele Fayose returned as the governor of Ekiti State, the workers’ hopes have given way to despair as salaries are no longer regular. The government is said to have found itself in a position where it has to combine the state’s allocation from the federal purse for two months to pay salaries for one month.
By the beginning of the year, the situation had grown so bad that workers were finding it difficult to pay their bills. Many of them have since resorted to boycotting office as a result of frustration. Some have had to sell their cars and landed property to pay their children’s school fees.
The foregoing situation has forced many workers in the state to adopt various measures by which they can survive the harsh economic climate. These include some of the workers trekking from home to office early in the morning purposely to pluck mangoes that would serve as breakfast.
There is the story of another worker who went to the blood transfusion centre to sell his blood in order to raise money for the food the family would eat. A teacher in a public school reportedly collapsed, and when she was revived, she said her problem was nothing but hunger.
Many of the workers in Ekiti are heavily indebted because they have had to buy many things on credit, while some of them are on the verge of being thrown out by their landlords. Others have had to withdraw their children from private schools to enroll them in public schools. There are yet some who have hit on the idea of using the lean period to learn trades that could guarantee steady income.
A good number of male civil servants in the state have relocated to their villages to do farming as the strike afforded them time to manage such farms. While many of them are doing farming at subsistence level, others have gone into commercial farming. One of our reporters learnt that some of the workers are into poultry, while others are rearing pigs, rabbits, goats and other animals. They believe that apart from selling such animals, their eggs, meat and milk are also good sources of income.
Some vocations the civil servants are now learning include tailoring, carpentry, painting, auto mechanic, shoemaking, panel beating, barbing, hairdressing and bricklaying, among others.
There are others who have turned their private cars to taxis popularly called kabu-kabu. Some female workers now sell sachet water popularly called pure water, fruits and roast corns to survive the harsh economic climate. Some who had been involved in church works on part-time basis are now fully into ministry.
Many female workers now make money serving as anchors of wedding engagements, while others have simply attached themselves to shop owners and market women to understudy them with a view to learning their trades.
Many people were shocked recently to learn that a middle-aged man in Kano, identified as Mallam Yusuf Bala decided to forfeit his five-year-old son for a bag of rice. According to reports, the man took his son to a rice merchant at Singer Market, Fagge Local Government Area of Kano State, pretending that he wanted to buy a bag of rice. He was said to have told the rice dealer, one Alhaji Suleiman Bagudu, that he forgot the money for the rice at home, offering to leave his son behind while he would go back home to get the N14,000 for the 50kg bag of rice.
It turned out that Bala failed to show up to pick his son more than six hours after he left. The rice dealer became suspicious and decided to interrogate the little boy who later led him to his father’s house in the Abattoir area of Koki, Dala Local Government Area of the state. Regretting his action, Bala said he decided on the option of trading his son for a bag of rice because he was financially handicapped.
But the game ended on a happy note for father and son because the rice dealer decided to forgive Bala, while at the same time offering to donate the bag of rice to his family.
In Ondo State, public servants are in distress. The last time they received a salary was in November 2015. For them and their families, the last Christmas and Easter celebrations were nothing but bleak. In May, the workers were forced to embark on strike to press home their demands for the payment of their salary arrears.
For a people whose large chunk of income is dependent on the salaries of civil servants, no one is left out of the pain and anguish as traders, farmers and other residents are feeling the impact of the hard times. To survive, more and more people in the state are now resorting to farming and other petty vocations.
A resident, Shola Adeyemi, told our correspondent that civil servants in the state are going through very rough times. Adeyemi, himself a civil servant, said the non-payment of more than six months salary has turned most civil servants in the state into beggars.
“Most civil servants in Ondo now live from hand to mouth. As a matter of fact, they are now beggars, as they now go round to source for foodstuff for survival,” Adeyemi said, shaking his head.
A trader at the popular Oja Oba market in Akure, Madam Atinuke, said that sales in the market have been affected badly, lamenting that most traders can no longer cope with the high cost of foodstuff and other goods.
“Nobody is spared the suffering. Market women and other people are suffering because the state government has refused to pay the civil servants. I know of some market women who have stopped selling at the market because they can no longer cope with the high cost of goods,” she said.
A contractor in the state, who pleaded anonymity, lamented the state of the economy. He said it is pathetic that most men can no longer play their roles at home.
He said: “You can imagine a situation where you, as the man in the house, can no longer perform your roles because you have no money. The situation is even worse in cases where both husband and wife are civil servants. Where do you expect such family to go for help?”
Some residents of Port Harcourt who spoke to The Nation said the hardship is biting hard in Rivers State as a result of the sense of insecurity and lack of cash. Some of them said the economic condition in the state had forced them to adjust to a lifestyle they had previously never imagined.
Mr. Emmanuel Arume, a trader at the Mile 3 Market in Port Harcourt, said his business had nosedived because he was being owed by many of his customers. He recalled that some people do come to him to beg for one cup of rice which they would eat together with their children, stressing that many people were finding it difficult to feed.
Arume said: “It is unfortunate that prices of food items in the market have increased beyond the pockets of many poor families. Today, a cup of rice is N100. A woman came to my shop last week crying and begging me to give her three cups of rice, promising to pay later.
“A lot of people are owing me at the moment. Some rice dealers who I also supply came with different stories that I should supply them. Till today, they have not paid. But I had to consider them because I know what they are passing through. This is the worst period I have seen since I started doing business in Port Harcourt.”
Mrs. Ijeoma Salas, a widow with three children, said she has relocated from her one-room apartment to a makeshift hut at Iwofi village in Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of the state.
“I am now looking for any part-time job to help me to take care of my family. I don’t mind even if it is a cleaning job. Before now, I sold roasted yam and plantain, but my business money finished when I needed to take care of my son who was sick, while the remainder was spent to feed my family.
“I had to relocate because I could no longer afford the N3, 500 I was paying for my apartment monthly. I pay N1,000 where I live now. Although it is a wooden house, it is better for me, considering the present economic situation.”
In Kwara State, leaving your pot of soup on fire and turning your back for a few minutes could prove a grievous mistake. Cases of mystery thieves absconding with smoking pots of soup has become a daily occurrence.
A victim, who resides in Sango area of the state, lamented the trend, saying that such cases have reached alarming stage, such that residents now have to keep vigil whenever they are cooking.
“It is very troubling now because you don’t know when somebody would sneak in to steal your pot of soup. People now stay with whatever they are cooking until it is ready,” she said.
For Lagos resident, Mrs. Ajike Abiodun, the economic condition has compelled her to make some changes at home.
She said: “Before now, whenever I went to Mile 12 to buy pepper and tomatoes, I usually hired load carriers to help me carry the goods to my shop. Now, I if I go to the same market with the same amount, I am only able to get two BAGCO bags worth of goods.”
The high cost of goods, she said, had made it impossible for her and her family to eat their choice meals. But more painful for her is the decision to enroll her daughter for training in fashion design because she can no longer afford to send her to school.
She said: “These days, we cannot even eat what we want. Business is slow and the high cost of goods has made it practically impossible for us to make profit. I had to send my daughter to go and learn tailoring because I cannot even afford to send her to school. It pains me because she is a brilliant girl and she has the potential to do great things if she is educated.
“I still have four other children to cater for and our house rent is due. The landlord has just issued us a quit notice, but I am sure if we can get the money to pay, the notice will be withdrawn.
“I am not a widow, neither am I a single mother. But my husband has been complaining that his work has not been going on well. In fact, it is already affecting the way we relate with each other.
“I just want to beg the government of the day to have mercy on us. This suffering is too much. We are working hard but the result is not showing in the manner we live our lives.”
Her story is not different from that of Ms Aminat Quadri. In the recent past, her food stall at the Ayilara area of Lagos was usually besieged with customers who struggle to catch her attention. During the good days, her supplies would have run dry by noon. But that is old story now. These days, the warming flasks she uses for storing the cooked food are still half-filled as late as 4 pm.
“My sister, I don’t understand any longer,” she told the reporter who asked her what the problem could be. “You needed to see how school children and adults used to surround me in the morning to buy food a few months ago. But now, things have changed. More people now buy food on credit and some who used to buy both breakfast and lunch would wait till 11 am before coming to buy, so that the food can sustain them till evening time.”
She explained further: “A bag of Semovita which sold for N2,700 last week has now increased to N3,500. A bowl of garri is now N700. So how do I even wrap it for sale?
“Things are tough for everybody. A woman in my compound has just left her husband to marry another man because her former husband could not meet her needs. Now, you need to see how their children are suffering. They have turned to errand boys and girls for other people in the compound because of the crumbs they stand to get.
“You may want to blame the woman for lacking patience, but how far would patience last if one continues to suffer?
“My appeal to our rulers is that they should do something to reduce the high cost of foodstuff. We can cope with bad roads and lack of electricity, but if there is no food in our stomach, we cannot survive.”
In Abia State, the biting economic hardship has turned many of the residents to emergency farmers. The fad among the people these days is to cultivate any available piece of land within their vicinity as part of their survival strategies.
The situation is even worse with civil servants who have not received their salaries in the last three months. For them, it is not only about feeding; their children have been sent out of schools because of their inability to pay their fees, while many have resorted to self-medication because they lack the money to go to hospitals.
A civil servant who spoke on the condition of anonymity said he had resorted to cultivating the small piece of land near his house to make ends meet, stressing that he has planted okro, vegetables, pepper and other things that he could gather to make small soup for his family.
“We are in the rainy season, and I wonder how we are going to survive if the situation fails to improve during the dry season,” he said.
A trader at the Ubani Ibeku main market, who gave his name as Ibu Ibe, said his sales had been badly affected by the economic crunch. Ibe said he has had to withdraw his children from private schools because he could no longer afford to pay their fees.
“If the situation continues like this, I bet you, many people will be looking for food from the dustbins of the rich, just like late Umaru Dikko said in the 80s.
“At the moment, I have stopped going to my village as often as I used to do because I can no longer afford to give money to those I normally give to whenever I am in the village. Unfortunately, these people won’t understand that things are no longer the same.”
Residents of Calabar, the Cross River State capital, are not exempted from the anguish imposed by cash crunch as they are groaning under the weight of the sharp rise in the cost of living.
Investigations revealed that prices of goods and services have risen astronomically, with the dollar being fingered as the culprit.
Before now in Calabar, taxies charged N50 per drop. But for several months now, the fare has gone up to N100. Also, the bus fare from 8 Miles, a settlement on the outskirts of the city, which was N100, is now between N150 and N200.
Findings in markets around Calabar also revealed the following: Five cups of garri, which previously sold for N100 now sell for N200; an egg now sells for N40 instead of N30; a crate of eggs which was selling for N750 is now N900; a cup of rice which was N50 before now sells for N90; local rice which was N45 is now N70; beans which was N40 before is now N60; tin tomatoes of N35 is now N50; groundnut oil which was N200 a bottle is now N350; polythene bag of N10 now goes for N20; a cup of pepper which before was N150 is now N300; palm oil which was N120 a litre is now N200; vegetable oil that was N500 a litre before is now N550 to N600; plantain flour has risen from N500 to N600; wheat which was three cups for N100 is now two cups for N100 and chicken, which sold for N900 is now N1500, among other items.
A civil servant, Mr Emmanuel Edem, who is a father of four, said the situation had made him miserable.
According to him, “When things were a bit better, it used to be a battle to take care of my family. Running my home from day to day was always a struggle and I barely managed it.
“Right now, I just feel sick thinking about how difficult things have become. Every morning one wakes up to uncertainty. Our pay has not been increased and we have to deal with this new problem. Something urgent should be done about it before it drives us mad.”
A trader at Watt Market, Mrs. Ebere Okoro, complained that the situation was causing “bad market” for traders at the market.
Recently, angry employees in the Bayelsa State local government areas rejected a proposal to pay them one-month salary out of the over 10-month salary arrears owed by the councils.
The workers, who insisted that they had been suffering, owing bank loans and school fees, said one month’s salary was unacceptable and unthinkable.
