…as parents battle hikes in school fees, rent, food prices
It is a season of triple shocks for many Nigerians as families in the Africa’s most populous nation battle to contain the escalating economic crisis in Nigeria from three different sides.
In addition to the climbing food prices, Nigerians are faced with hikes in school fees even ahead of a new term and over 60 percent increment in house rent.
Nigeria’s inflation rate accelerated to 31.70 percent in February, driven by increasing food prices that have triggered a cost-of-living crisis.
The International Monetary Fund recently warned that almost one in 10 people in Nigeria are facing food insecurity.
President Bola Tinubu launched a series of economic reforms, including the removal of fuel subsidies and liberalisation of currency controls. Though the reforms were welcomed by foreign investors, it has been fuelling a cost-of-living crisis.
With food inflation, which constitutes 50 percent of the inflation rate, rising to 37.92 percent in February from 35.41 percent in January, the prices of stable foods such as garri, rice, beans, yam, bread, noodles, pasta and eggs have more than doubled in recent time.
For instance, a paint bucket of yellow garri now sells for an average of N2,500 as against N1,200 sold in December 2023; a paint bucket of rice sells for over N6,500 while a medium-sized loaf of bread now sells for N1,200 from N750 this time last year and the biggest size sells for an average of N1,600.
In Nigeria today, people spend their salaries on three basic things of life including buying foodstuffs for the home, paying house rent and their children’s school fees as the rising economic pressure gives them no room to save for rainy days.
Stella Oluwatobi, a 38-year accountant, told BusinessDay Sunday that things have not been easy for her family as she and her husband only work for food, house rent and school fees.
According to her, it has become difficult for her husband, who is a fashion designer and herself to save money every month due to the rate of spending on these basic things.
“The monthly expenditure on food items takes an average of 50 percent of our monthly earnings. On top of that, the expanses on transportation to and from work have also soared, making it difficult for one to save,” the mother of two said.
Aisha Aremu, an advertising practitioner, said the economic situation in the country is pushing her and her family hard.
She said she couldn’t mark her son’s birthday just last week due to biting money problems as nothing is left for frivolities after funding the basic family needs.
“My two children pay as much as N310,000 per term as school fees and this is in addition to the over N1million per annum house rent. I pay the children’s school fees, pay the house rent and pick up other bills for three years since my husband lost his job,” she said.
Aremu said she is going through a serious hard time as almost all her earnings go into feeding the family.
As prices of food items continue to go up on a day-to-day basis, landlords appear to be reviewing their rents accordingly, while private school proprietors are also reviewing their fees upwards.
Ordinarily, increases in school fees are usually communicated to parents at the beginning of a new session, but that is not the situation anymore as school owners also struggle to keep their heads above troubled waters.
Schools are writing to parents to announce a new regime of fees, which, some parents say, are unsettling the plans they had made for their children’s academic calendar.
Chinonso Igwe, an electrical engineer, told our correspondent that rising prices are killing families and mounting pressure on family incomes.
He said the owner of his children’s school recently invited the parents for a Parents Teachers Association meeting where the school owner announced that the tuition fee of each primary school pupil would be raised from N55,000 to N85,000 per child.
“This means that three of my children who were formerly paying N165,000 per term will in the coming term pay N255,000. This will pile more financial pressure on the family, and we have to deny ourselves a lot of things to be able to cope with the pressure. We are suffering in this country,” Igwe said.
According to him, his wife barely earns a salary of N150,000 monthly while he earns between N170,000 and N200,000 from his electrical jobs.
As families receive blows from the left and right over the accelerating food prices and increased children’s tuition fees, the house rent is giving them another blow from the middle without minding their economic state.
Several landlords in Nigeria have increased their house rent by as much as 60 percent to cover the impact of inflation on their earnings.
“We were paying a rent of N500,000 per annum for a two-bedroom flat but our landlord wrote to us through his lawyer early this year to announce a raise in the rent to N800,000 per annum,” Eugene Ezeofor, a clearing agent, told BusinessDay Sunday.
Ezeofor, who lives in the Idimu area of Lagos, said that he and the other tenant have tried severally to reach an agreement with the landlord to reduce the rent, but the man had bluntly refused to shift ground.
He said the landlord had told them to consider looking for an alternative if they cannot afford to pay the new rent. He expressed worries that August when he usually renews his rent is fast approaching and he has no idea of how to raise N800,000 to pay the rent.
He said he and the other tenants are planning to put up a fight with the landlord if he refuses to reduce the rent to a reasonable point.
Chikwado Aku, a businesswoman, said the rent of the two-bedroom apartment where she and her family live in the Satellite area of Lagos, was increased from N550,000 per annum to N850,000.
According to her, the owner of their building told her that the increment was in response to the rising inflation.
“My landlady told me that the house where we live is the only market that the family has to sell. She said that the rising prices are affecting them seriously and the family decided to raise the rent to be able to use the money realised from the house to pick up the bills, which are climbing by the day.
“Though raising the rent by over 50 percent is quite a big blow to my family the discussion with my landlady opened my eyes to the fact that house owners are also not finding things easy,” Aku said.
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