How Nigerians are surviving amidst recession
There has been a decline in the Nigerian economy. The economy has gone south and people have not been finding it easy, at all. The standards of living have also continued to depreciate. Today, some of those who used to go to the hospital at the symptom of a slight headache now stay back at home and do self-medication because things are becoming too difficult for them.
As the recession goes on, inflation sets in. Prices of goods and services have gone up and it is affecting the feeding pattern of many households.
Businessday SUNDAY went to town to ask some individuals how they and their families are coping with the situation.
Mercy Omoh, an undergraduate, said: “In the past, when I had just one hundred naira, I could prepare noodles with egg and I’ll be satisfied, but today I can’t do that anymore. If I do not have up to two hundred naira, I can’t get satisfied.”
According to her, “I now trek long distance, just to save transport fare. The ‘keke’ riders would not even collect fifty naira anymore, they collect nothing less than one hundred naira; how do they want us to cope in this country?”
Bisina Somto, another undergraduate, said: “Most of us are not 9am-5pm workers, even people who are 9am-5pm workers, also have other businesses they are doing, as much as the recession is affecting everybody financially, some people have savings prior to this recession. We have been in a pandemic since March, a lot of people are already accustomed to not being able to earn, so they have already cut down on their lifestyles to the barest minimum, thereby creating savings for them to spend only on essential things.”
In the same vein, Madam Doni, a mother of four, self-employed, said: “Things are hard in this country ooo. When I could cook a pot of soup with five thousand naira and it would last me for days. Now, tell me how I would use that same money to go to the market now, when I have for children to feed, tell me how?
“You’ll go to the market now and the traders would sell three small bulbs of onions for two hundred naira, what do I want to do with that? I would want to go out and I’ll be calculating transport fare like a child, it is only God that will help us in this country.”
Elizabeth Gilbert, a school teacher, complained that the recession came at a very bad time.
“Some of us are just living corpses in this country. I teach in a private school and since March, I have only collected salary three times since March, and now this. Sometimes, one would not know whether to say it is better to die or what? Life is becoming very unbearable. It is only hope in God that is sustaining us now,” she said.