Lonely Christmas for many young Nigerians as nancial crisis bites

LAGOS — Emmanuel Ejeh has a barbershop set in a park in Maitama, an affluent area of Nigeria’s capital city, Abuja. The last time he travelled to his home town in Benue state more than 200 miles away to see his elderly mother was eight years ago.

“Since then, things have continually gotten worse and worse,” he says of his business and personal finances. “Instead of spending so much money on transportation to Benue and back to Abuja, it is better to send part of that money to my mother instead. It does not make up for seeing her, but what other option do I have?

Ejeh will be 29 in January, but the last time he saw his mother, he was 20. He belongs to a generation of young Nigerians being forced to break age-old traditions of travelling home to their families at Christmas.

The economic crisis in Nigeria and increasing insecurity on the roads have made it more difficult to travel any distance. With persistent inflation reaching a 17-year high of 25.8% in August, young people who have gone to find jobs in Nigeria’s urban centres, away from their families, have a challenging time balancing low wages with the soaring cost of living.

More than 133 million of Nigeria’s 225 million people – 70% of whom are aged under 30 – live in poverty.

For most Nigerians, the annual return to their home town or village is an important Christmas tradition. This seasonal migration makes Christmas one of the few times families in many communities get together and the holiday is seized on as an opportunity to have all the get-togethers they missed out on over the year, making the already festive season even more jolly.

In 2018, it cost Ejeh less than 6,000 naira to make the road trip from Abuja to Benue state and back. Today, the same journey would cost him 28,000 naira (£28).

“And this does not include the extra expenses from being around family members you have not seen in a long time. You will need to get them gifts and spend in some other way. It is Christmas, after all,” says Ejeh, whose income as a semi-skilled worker has not improved in that time.

In Lagos, things are not much better for Precious Olisekwu, a 26-year-old product designer and only child. “I have not seen my parents in three years,” she says. “I miss them.

“My mother brought up the subject, but the price for air tickets was just too exorbitant. I know she misses me, but the logical thing is to stay back in Lagos because the roads are not safe.

“I do not care much about joining my parents to make the yearly trip down to Delta state, our state of origin. But I would have loved to visit them in Port Harcourt, where they live and also where I grew up,” she says of their city in Rivers state, 400 miles (640km) away in Nigeria’s southeast.

Olisekwu and her parents have already broken one mainstay of tradition, in not returning to Delta state. This is because of the misogyny the small family face for having no male child. Now she just wants just to be with her parents for Christmas. But that is still out of reach.

When Olisekwu moved to Lagos in 2021, a one-way flight from Port Harcourt to Lagos was 19,500 naira. Today, the cheapest one-way trip from Port Harcourt to Lagos costs 151,600 naira, while a round trip is between 245,000 and 1m naira.

For another young man, Kevin, who doesn’t want his real name used, going by road from Lagos to his home in Calabar, nearly 500 miles away on the Cameroon border, is a gruelling journey, made worse by the constant security checkpoints on Nigeria’s roads. “Whenever I travel by road, the police profile and harass me. They would stop the vehicle, search and harangue me because of my beard and hair,” says Kevin, who pairs his long beard with a shaved head after repeated chemotherapy sessions.

“I have a lot of things to travel back to Calabar for. I have people there that miss me and want to see me, people I grew up with. There is a poetry community I used to be a part of that will be having a reading, and they want me there.” He misses his church and the Christmas carol services.

“These are my community, my people, and they made it clear that they want me there. But travelling by road from Lagos to Calabar is an arduous journey, and having the police harass me at every stop does not make things any easier.”

For Fidel Iwu, the 75-mile journey from Port Harcourt to Mbaise in Imo state is not too long a drive but his village has become too unsafe.

“The rate of kidnappings in the last year has skyrocketed. Neither I nor any of my siblings will be able to travel to the village this year. It is very frustrating.

“As it stands now,” Iwu says, “we are trying to see if we can even get our mother out of there to ensure her safety.

For young Nigerians, Christmas represents some of the most beautiful traditions of identity and community they have. And being isolated at this time of year is proving one of the toughest aspects of Nigeria’s economic and security crisis.