In his Independence Day speech, President Bola Tinubu offered Nigerian workers an additional Twenty-Five Thousand naira per month for the next six months.
According to the Jollof rice index, the amount is approximately equivalent to two extra pots of jollof rice in a month.
In the Jollof Index report released in July 2023, the average cost of preparing a pot of jollof rice for a Nigerian family of five rose to 34.2 per cent in one year.
The report, titled ‘Hungry for Change’ by SBM Intelligence, an Africa-focused geopolitical research and strategic communications consulting firm, shows that the cost of preparing a pot of the popular Nigerian delicacy rose to N12,373 in June 2023 from N9,220 in the same period of last year.
“The price increase in April and early May could be linked to the lingering consequences of last year’s floods, which dealt a fatal blow to the late harvest and the naira redesign policy,” the report said.
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“These are the end of the country’s petrol subsidies and the devaluation of the local currency, the naira, to unify the exchange rate and attempt to remove arbitrage in the system. The subsidy removal increased fuel prices and food and transportation costs across West Africa over the last two months,” it added.
The data was gathered monthly from 13 markets spread across Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones and is computed using the costs of the ingredients.
With school fees doubling and tripling, food prices soaring, fuel prices reaching close to 600 per litre, and Nigerians generally struggling to make ends meet, what would be the next move of President Tinubu after the N25,000 offer for the next six months?
Will this offer quell the unmet expectations of the average Nigerian worker?
