By Abubakar Yakubu, Abuja
The present economic crisis is affecting Nigerians all over the country, but residents of Abuja, the nation’s capital, are particularly having a torrid time due to the astronomical rise in the cost of living, with most calling on the government to control food prices.
For eight-year-old Cynthia (surname withheld), life has lost meaning, especially when her father, mother and three of her siblings had to relocate from a one-bedroom flat to a one-room apartment at Auta Balifi in Nasarawa State due to the poor economic situation in the country and her father not having a job. The hardship that engulfed her family forced her out of school and she was so devastated that she told her mates that she would soon take her life. A neighbour, Madam Udeh, said when Cynthia told some of her age mates that she would soon kill herself, they did not report it to their mothers until the day she made good her threat by holding a live electricity wire.
“Her scream as well as other screams from people in the compound made some men use wood to free her from the shock and they later gave her milk to calm her body,” the neighbour said.
She said the next day the father took the girl with other members of his family to his village in Kaduna State. The family of Mrs Halima Garuba, a teacher with two children, is somehow different as the children understand with her and manage whatever food she provides for them to eat.
The teacher said she lives at Jikwoyi and works at Garki, in Abuja with a monthly salary of N80,000. “About half of it goes to transportation, while the rest is for feeding and other household needs,” she stressed. She lamented further that her husband, who is a retiree earns a paltry N20,000 monthly, which cannot cater for the family.
According to her, their house rent is N450,000 and presently with the high cost of foodstuff, things are really terrible and her family has cut down their food ration to twice daily, apart from her six year-old son, who eats thrice daily.
Mrs Garuba appealed to the federal government to restore the payment of the N20,000 palliatives for six months to pensioners that was suspended before it even started.
Another resident, Monday Aboh, said people are really suffering due to the escalating prices of foodstuff.
“For us, doing business is very difficult as we use our capital to feed,” he lamented.
He described some of the federal government’s economic policies as being merely theories and advised government to be more practical by reducing the prices of foodstuff.
Aboh narrated an experience where a man approached him to beg for N200 to feed and said such situations are very common daily. He said at his home, he tries to improvise by reducing the quantity and quality of the meals in order to save cost.
“We do feed three times daily but instead of buying foodstuff in bulk as was the practice in the past, we just buy what to consume and prepare for the next day,” he disclosed.
He said his family no longer spends money on celebrating birthdays, and lamented that Nigeria is richly blessed with economic resources and there is need for its leaders to get down to practical governance by reducing foodstuff prices as well as creating jobs.
Abdullahi Ibrahim, another resident, said during Sallah period, he normally travels to Katsina from Abuja but this year, he could not due to lack of money. He lamented the high cost of transportation and foodstuff.
“Before now, I used to buy a ram for my people in the village but this year, I told them to go to the market to buy meat,” he said.
Ibrahim advised the federal government to, as a matter of urgency, set up a rice control board to regulate the prices of foodstuff in the country as well as ensure that local government authorities get their allocations directly from the federation account so that people in the rural areas can feel the dividends of democracy through developmental projects.
Madam Asma’u, a hair braider, described the current hardship as terrible.
“Before now, I bought a measure of rice for N1, 200 but now the price is like gold,” she said. She lamented that a packet of a popular seasoning which used to cost N500 now sells for N1,200, while getting tomatoes has become an impossible venture, adding that on some days she cooks one cup of rice and manages it for the day.
According to her, she does a lot of trekking daily before boarding a commercial bike to and from her place of work to reduce cost. She called on the federal government to try and control the prices of foodstuff in order to reduce the hardship faced by people.
Another resident, Mrs Ego Isiogu, described the hardship as very unbearable. She said in those days, she could use N150, 000 to stock her shop, but now, such an amount is a joke to take to the market to purchase goods.
She disclosed further that customers are also complaining of hardship and called on government to put their acts together by remedying the situation, so as not to allow for a state of anarchy. A measure of beans that used to sell for N1,800 not quite long now sells for N3000 today, and the same skyrocketing prices also affects rice, garri and bread,” she said. She said at her home in the past, her family ate balanced meals three times daily with extra in-between “but these days we feed twice daily.
“We are just managing and, as a woman, I think a lot and what we feed our family these days is called ‘hold belle’ as we have even turned hunger to fasting by telling the children to fast till noon, thereby skipping breakfast,” she disclosed.
Mrs Isiogu advised the federal government to open the borders under strict surveillance, regulate market prices to reduce the high cost of foodstuff, build factories to create jobs as well as boost the country’s economy.
She also called on both the federal and state governments to introduce craft and arts in primary and secondary schools and lamented the importation of pencils, razor blades and toothpicks from foreign countries instead of producing them in Nigeria.
“These days the government is building roads instead of food processing mills to stop hunger and provide employment. I have university graduates in my house and it pains me to see them doing nothing. And even when one falls ill, accessing government hospitals is not easy and when you get there, they don’t have drugs,” she said.
Mrs Golden Eban, a resident, said she came to the shop to purchase a crate of eggs and was shocked to see that the price had increased from N1,300 to N2,100.
“Imagine the cost margin and this also applies to a small measure of crayfish that used to sell for N50; it is now N200.
“Today if you don’t have N500 you can’t drink garri, and since we are a family of five, I have shifted breakfast time from 8am to 9:30am in order for the next meal to fall at 1 pm,” she said.
She said her children are no longer allowed to go outside to play as it was in the past to prevent their clothes from getting dirty.
“I don’t want to spend money on detergent anyhow and I have advised my husband that we should start family planning as the children’s school fees is above our house rent,” she said. She called on the federal government to provide places where people can work. Also speaking on the hardship facing the country, the Metropolitan and Archbishop of Abuja Methodist Church, His Grace Most Revd Michael Akinode advised President Bola Tinubu to address the economic hardship facing Nigerians.
He made the comment during the church’s Thanksgiving Day to mark Fathers’ Day and the men’s workweek in Abuja. He asked the president to take decisive actions to address the present hardship, adding that a lot of homes are bleeding at this time and government should do everything it can to cushion the effect of the battered economy.
The cleric also warned that the high cost of living had placed necessities beyond the reach of the common man.
Similarly, the Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammadu Sa’ad Abubakar, while speaking on the issue during his sermon shortly after the Eid prayers in Sokoto, lamented that Nigeria is grappling with a lot of challenges, while its citizens are facing untold hardship.
The sultan then called on the government at all levels to do more to address the current hardship in the country.