Henry Ndubisi, a father of four, who has been a teacher for five years, finds it hard to keep up with the increasing expenses since the beginning of the year.
For Ndubisi, a forty-year-old father of three girls and a boy, whose spouse is a full time housewife, his family has been struggling to make ends meet with his little salary as prices of goods and services have surged. And despite the increase from his salary of N80,000 two years ago to N100,000 at the beginning of the year, Ndubisi still cannot meet up with the inflationary pressures.
Things have become too expensive, he said in frustration.
“My initial excitement about my meager salary increase has completely gone, it’s so hard to feed five mouths three square meals a day. Everything has gone up, from feeding to transport and rent,” he added. “I thought my household was an average one, but I’m beginning to think otherwise, we are seriously considering my wife getting a job as we cannot live off my salary alone’’
As prices of everything, especially food, makes rapid climbs amid rising poverty and dwindling income, life is getting harder daily for consumers in Africa’s most populous country. The situation is worsened by weak naira as well as the surge in energy costs that has further reduced consumers’ disposable income.
Read also: Nigeria’s nagging food insecurity remains obstacle to shared prosperity
The population of Nigerians dragged below the poverty line continuously increases on the back of soaring inflation rate and high cost of living. According to data from the World Poverty Clock of the Brookings Institute Over 105 million Nigerians still live in extreme poverty, The World Bank recently projected that Nigeria’s accelerating inflation will push an additional 7 million into poverty by the end of 2022.
A lot of Nigerians’ purchasing power has drastically reduced due to the surging inflation rate, for many this means that the things that they could afford yesterday are no longer attainable today.
“Survival is the most difficult thing in Nigeria now irrespective of whether you are in the upper, middle or lower-income class; as there is no source of income the surging inflation is not affecting,” Benson Salami-Olayanju, chairman of Panfcm-Tech-Wise Treasure Investment, said.
Over the last one year the prices of several commodities has increased by alarming percentages, with the recent food inflation figure at 23.34 percent according to (NBS). For example, the smallest size of noodles went up by over 100 percent to N200 in August 2022 from N70 in the same period of 2021. Egg, sold for N70 last year, witnessed a 43 percent increase in price. Just recently the price of a bag of rice skyrocketed to over N40,000 with predictions that it will hit N50,000 before the end of the year, even bread wasn’t left out as a loaf of 500g sliced bread is now sold for N850 and above.
Glory Fadipe, head of research at FCMB during a conversation with BusinessDay said, “Many families skip meals and they also take lower portions, they get the cheaper stuff irrespective of quality they just have to break even and there’s nothing that can be done about it.”
She spoke of how some food items are fast becoming meals consumed only once in a while.
Food prices aren’t the only concern. This year, energy and gas witnessed uptick in their prices. The price of a liter of diesel went as high as N800 from N288 in January, The price of 12.5kg cooking gas also spiked up to N8500-10,000 from N7700 in January.
As a result of increase in diesel and fuel prices, transportation also experienced a hike in price. The price of Aviation Turbine Kerosene also known as Jet A1 fuel, which ranged from N230 to N250 per litre across different states in the country last year, rose in March to N590 in Lagos; N599 in Abuja and Port Harcourt; and N625 in Kano.
Local airlines responded to this by hiking their airfare tickets in any state in the country. Public transport which the average Nigerian uses also witnessed a significant hike in its price, the popular bus rapid transit (BRT) in Lagos increased its price by N100 in July.
Nigeria’s exit from recession in 2017 and 2020, has failed to lead to improvement in the living condition of Nigerians as rising prices and low incomes continue impacting their purchasing power, making them poorer.
The Federal Government said it has earmarked about $7 billion within the last seven years in its efforts to pull 100 million Nigerians out of poverty through its National Social Investment Programme in the country but not much improvement has occurred.
Temitayo Olumide, who works in one of the tier one banks in Nigeria said that this year she has noticed a disturbing increase in the amount of people who take to begging. “Growing up, I was used to seeing just disabled people begging, but it has gotten worse over the years. Now you see able men, and women begging, even online you see people asking to be helped with food items. A lot of people can barely afford what they used to presently,” she said.
