What recession is doing to Nigerians?

Recession is a difficult time when there is less trade, less business activity in a country than usual. There is deep recession in Nigeria that is affecting the economic state of the country thereby making life difficult for the citizens. This period of reduced economic activity which is popularly known as “recession” has a negative impact on Nigerians. All the sectors in Nigeria is receding and withdrawing their activities. This hard time trailed Nigeria since November 21, 2016 when the National Bureau of Statistic (NBS) officially announced that the country was in recession.

The source of fund for business enterprises has dwindled drastically affecting the small scale businesses and people who obtain capital through borrowing money, making them to bear their cross on their own. The professional lenders do not have sufficient money to give out to those who wish to borrow. Presently Nigerians are now faced with various ordeals that are too much for them to handle and cope with most especially the lower class division known as the masses.

Many people cannot feed themselves and their families and others struggle to survive day in, day out, while some are faced with no option than to commit suicide in order to escape these ordeals of lack, wants, rigorous poverty, untimely deaths and inability to feed themselves. This recession has caused a wheelbarrow pusher that carries loads for people on a daily basis more richer than a civil servant because many civil servants in our country now basically rely only on their monthly salaries which is not paid regularly thereby making laborers richer than government workers.

Since there is less trade in the country, there is inflation and the value of money has reduced drastically that a one thousand naira note is now equivalent, value-wise, to a hundred naira of days gone by in Nigeria. The price of goods and services has increased to a point that commodities you buy now in the market will double in price the next moment. This deep recession is seriously affecting the standard of living of many Nigerians. This can be likened to a proverb which says, “People are working like elephants and reaping like ants”.

This recession is caused by poor development planning, poor economic management and the inability to diversify the economy as Nigerians solely depends on crude oil for revenue generation, neglecting other means like agriculture, manufacturing, mining among others. In Nigeria, corruption has been institutionalized and raised to a level of structural parameter. There is lack of planned discipline where our leaders lack the political will to keep to their plans, they love side-tracking development plans. There is misplacement of priorities. There is also technology transfer syndrome because not until the fourth developmental plan in Nigeria, our leaders did not recognize the key roles of indigenous technological capabilities in national development. Ajiboye Ibironke Serah, IBBU, Lapai, Niger State.