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    Young Lady Laments On The High Cost Of Foodstuffs

    Reading reactions to Petra’s post on the now internet famous tubers of yam and how the astronomical prices were about to force some serious diet re-consideration decisions, was hilarious (as always), and also a little bit bitter sweet because the hard facts that we
    sometimes lose when we focus on the humor in the posts that a lot of us put up; is that things are no longer as they have been and the slide is all the way downhill.

    Not to scare anyone or sound alarmist, but if anyone at all has been following the news and trends lately, there doesn’t appear to be an immediate respite anytime soon.

    Think about it: the other day I was working with my cousin Nwachukwu Chinyere Jane and my sister-in-law
    Chinwendu to arrange some stuff for me from home because getting them from the African shops here is akin to donating precious blood. Anyway, the shopping list included the usual
    na: stock fish, dried fish, dried prawns, crayfish… normal normal. The way I was ordering and releasing cash for the purchase of these items, I was almost sure I’ll have to go and purchase a 700 cubic foot deep freezer because I felt that this one go be “chop and quench” for me when it lands.

    Brethren, they tried o, my people tried and I trust those two to drive a hard bargain but when I looked at what my money was able to get me vis-à-vis what I spent to get a larger amount of stuff when my mum was coming over to visit just mid last year, I could only
    shake my head in disbelief. See ehn, how are you all surviving Nigeria?

    It cannot be easy at all considering that while these prices are going up on a regular, wages and salaries are remaining fairly constant and that is if and when the employer decides that
    ensuring that their employees can still afford to at the least, avoid starvation, is topmost of their priorities. Honestly, some organizations appear not to be able to even keep up with their salary obligations to their staff any longer, but I don’t want to go into payment of wages and salaries with this post because I believe I have ranted enough about how Nigeria should revert to an hourly
    pay economy ASAP, so that people can either earn a living wage from their employers, or be free to find second and even third jobs if they so desire, that can help them cushion the biting costs of inflation and surviving in a country like Nigeria – but like I said earlier: topic for another day.

    Back to this rising cost of food stuff and the threat it poses to Nigerians: matter of fact, let us not localize this thing to food stuff – the other day I did a post about how the value of the naira has so crashed, that a single dollar now exchanges for over N570 and this is not even available, you have to go to the parallel markets to exchange dollar for naira at the rate of over N610/$.

    Bear in mind o, that minimum wage in Nigeria is still in the region of N30,000.

    But…chere ka m bia! Don’t go anywhere yet.

    Convertigodu this minimum wage to dollars.

    Why dollars? Well, short answer – Nigeria is an import driven economy. In a nutshell, this means that nearly every single item we use or consume in Nigeria is imported. We pride ourselves on producing crude, but then silently refuse to acknowledge the fact that we export crude and import refined petroleum products – but again that will be the topic for another post. Not today!

    So, import driven economy means that when the dollar coughs small (and right now the thing is on a combined whooping cough plus tuberculosis plus covid plus plus combined coughing episode); the Nigerian economy develops “sifia” sore throat.

    Before we forget where we were, we are converting the Nigerian minimum wage to dollars.

    Brethren and Sisthren, for the benefit of those of you who like me, were supporting the rest of the class on their shoulders during mathematics class, just simply divide the minimum
    wage by the naira/dollar exchange rate. So… 30,000/616 = $48.70 per month.

    Okay, this is what a full-grown adult with family to provide for is supposed to survive on for a full month? And there were complaints about how this was not a living wage at all when the exchange rate was at N190/$? People, how are you all coping? Please! This is a genuine question – how is anyone still managing to even be alive in Nigeria? This is horrible to say the least.

    One interesting article I read while pondering over this matter, placed the value of basic food products for healthy living for a single adult, at N40,980/month – a clear N11,000 above the national minimum wage. Now imagine where a Nigerian earning this amount has to cater for themselves, their significant other, any children they may have, and demands for “family support” from nuclear and extended relatives.

    Brethren, no be die be that?

    This issue of rising costs of living vis-à-vis the available cash in the average Nigerian’s pocket is not something that we should even brush away even though the Nigerian DNA is wired to find the lighter side of every incident and try to convert it to jokes and bants, it is a serious issue. The average Nigerian is practically a government unto his own self: we buy our own food, provide our own basic healthcare, subsidize and augment the quality of education our children receive, band together as a community to tar our own roads, provide our own alternate source of electricity because we know the Power Holding Company is doing just
    that – holding on to power.

    It is not surprising to see the massive brain drain that is happening now within the country, and people being pushed by economic hardships to take drastic decisions and actions such as the recourse to crime and desperate measures like suicide.

    And again, I do not mean to sound pessimistic but there appears to be no end in sight!

    (I’ll stop here for now and continue tomorrow, because I sprained my wrist while trying to
    do some James Bond over the weekend. I am currently in a wrist brace and typing is giving
    me so much pain! Let me rub small aboniki on my wrist and apply some ICE therapy, I’ll be
    back in a few hours).

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