Yetunde Oladeinde, Assistant Editor and Medinat Kanabe in this report recount the agonies of families whose breadwinners can no longer eke out a living on account of the biting economic situation
TIMES are indeed very hard but it’s even harder for those who earn little or nothing at all.
When The Nation spoke to a cross-section of Nigerians across the geopolitical divides on how families are coping with the hard times, the kind of responses and feedback that followed were not only baffling but unimaginable.
Firing the first salvo, Mrs. Rhoda Martins, who works as a nanny at a day care centre in the Isolo axis of Lagos, and earns a paltry N15, 000 monthly salary, said her life has been a living hell in recent times because her family of three have had to rely solely on her meagre income to survive as her husband is jobless.
Married with a kid, Mrs. Martins who is expecting her second child recalled that when she took her new job eight months ago, her family could still manage but it is not the same anymore.
“When I started this job eight months ago, I was not pregnant then. My little kid and my husband who had just lost his job could still manage with my little salary because we cleverly mapped out how the money would be spent until the end of the month. But it’s becoming increasingly difficult to survive on that now. It’s not easy especially for my husband as he sometimes would eat just once in a day or not at all.”
Gazing listlessly into space, the distraught mother amidst tears recalled that the hard times have taken their toll on her family. “My husband was rushed to the hospital because he fainted at his new place of work as he had not eaten for days. Since the beginning of the recession, life has been really tough for us.”
Apparently concerned about his wife’s condition, Mr. Martins had been skipping meals just so his wife and kid could manage with the little available but that has had a ripple effect on his health.
Troubling as the Martins’ situation is, they seem to be better off than Mr. and Mrs. Chukwudi. Talk of different strokes for different folks.
In the case of the Chukwudis, the husband earns a meagre N8000 monthly from working as a sales boy while the wife earns N10, 000 as a cleaner.
“My job as a cleaner is not consistent. I sweep for people. So I earn very little which I use to assist my husband to take care of the house. We have four children between the ages of seven and two who attend a government school located near our neighbourhood,” Mrs. Chukwudi said.
According to her, the economic recession has made things stagnant for her family. “We are just there doing the same thing, eating the same thing and going hungry sometimes. People don’t even call me to wash for them or clean for them like before because they don’t have the money to pay. They now do things themselves. I pray that things get better soon.”
Another family, Mr. and Mrs. Akpan, who are self-employed, lamented how the state of affairs in the country is terribly affecting them and their three children.
Mr. Akpan who owns a laundry shop said: “Before the recession, people owed me some money and promised to pay, but with the recession, I have not received the old debts and new ones are piling up. The thing is that they will call you to beg you and explain that they have not been paid in their various places of work or someone owes them some money. It is just promises every day.”
His wife who is a food vendor not too far from her husband’s shop told The Nation that their dream of moving into a proper accommodation this year may not be possible after all.
“We have been working really hard. I try to save with my husband so that we can stop living in his shop and move into a proper apartment, but with what is happening in the country now, we may not achieve that dream anytime soon.
“The economic recession is really affecting us. We’re not making as much as we used to. Even at that, what we used to make was just manageable so you can imagine how hard it is for us now.”
When Biodun and Shola got married, they set a figure on the number of children they planned to have. While Shola thought two children would be enough, her husband wanted four. So they eventually settled for four children and everything seemed to be going as planned. About two years ago, Shola got pregnant with the fourth baby and when she went for scan, the result revealed that it was going to be triplets. They arrived and instead of four children, they have been struggling to feed six children
“Things got really bad early this year because my husband was retrenched and has been at home since then. The hardest part of it all is feeding eight people on a daily basis. My salary is not enough. As a woman, the worst thing that can happen to you is not knowing where the next meal is going to come from.”
In an emotion-laden voice, she lamented the high cost of almost every food item in the market and the adjustments she has had to make in the past few months.
“The only thing I buy with my income is food. I cannot afford to buy anything else because I have so many people to feed. There are days when I’m left with nothing and go to bed on empty stomach but consoled that the children are okay. These days, things like bread and yam have become a luxury because you cannot buy enough to feed the family.”
Like Shola, Regina Ibekwe says mothers are groaning in the kitchen trying to ration the portions for survival. “I have four grown up boys and there are days I get to the kitchen and start screaming because of the way they eat. However, I try to do my best in terms of food and we forgo meat and fish these days. Also because the cash flow is very bad, we have been surviving by buying stuffs on credit.”
Then suddenly Regina could no longer contain the emotions that had surged through her and she burst into tears. “I’m afraid that my children may become malnourished. I’m also scared because a lot of the things people consume these days are either fake or adulterated. These include palm oil, dry pepper, garri and so many others that are risky to our health and well-being.”
In a slow sombre tone, she wondered how long the inflation on food prices would continue.
For 71-year-old Latifa Owolabi, things have indeed fallen apart and the average Nigerian housewives are no longer at ease in the kitchen. “I have never seen anything like this in my life. It’s like a famine, everyone around you is hungry yet they cannot afford to buy food to nourish their body. I have been praying for the country and I believe that things would get better soon. When I got married about 50 years ago, my husband used to give me 25 shillings for food and housekeeping. I would buy everything that I needed and still have some change left. Unfortunately, you cannot buy one item with that amount and it is so sad. It is not good for us because we all know that a hungry man is an angry man.”
Sharing her own experience, 36-year-old Falilat Dauda says she works round the clock to make sure that her family is not affected.
“I’m a widow and I lost my job last year and the burden of feeding has become a nightmare. Determined to survive, I have planted vegetables, yam, maize at the back of the house. This, however, is for the future. I’m still bothered about feeding the mouths in the house in the next few weeks and months.”
Sadly, malnutrition among women and children is a major challenge to health and human development. Malnourished children have an increased risk of disability and premature death and they are highly predisposed to infectious diseases. Nigeria has one of the highest burdens of malnutrition in Africa and globally.
For a majority of Nigerians, suffering has become a metaphor of existence as they forlornly hope for better days ahead.
