In this Nigeria, I don’t even know what to do to have some comfort again. In this scorching northern sun that is always hitting my bald and wetting my body anytime I go out at a time like this to provide for my family, I find it really hard to concentrate and think well. The small business I’m doing is no longer profitable. The other time I went to restock from Alhaji Danliti’s shop, the prices of the items I was to buy scared the life out of me. Me that was looking for small small profit, how would I cope with the new price regime? When I enquired as to the reason for the sharp increase in the prices of the commodities I was retailing, the explanation – even though I didn’t understand all of it – was that our money was losing value and dollar was gaining, having a lavish feast on our feeble naira.
Yesterday, I rode my bicycle – in this economic situation who can afford feeding family and motorcycle! It’s been 3 months now since I parked my old Jincheng Motorcycle, I use it only when I must – to market to buy commodities for the little trading I’m doing to earn a living, and again, the prices didn’t come down. Look at this sugar that we used to buy its measure at N1,000, it is now N2,500! Me I have stopped providing it for the family, I buy it only to sell to customers at small quantities. This Alhaji didn’t know me well! Who told him I could buy these goods at this price, me that is listening to radio every day. Was it not this week that they said the naira has appreciated against the foreign currency. If the other time the prices went up because of the dollar, now it should come down, at least. The explanation he gave didn’t convince me. I just had to buy at the prices he earlier announced to continue to remain in business.
We haven’t even finished recovering from the economic hemorrhage occasioned by fuel subsidy removal and now they’re unveiling another package of hardship to us. From fuel, it is now electricity. But at least this one will not affect us much; it is for those that think they are strong to be pricked by the hefty pernicious hands of this economic meltdown. This situation is gradually humbling people. My primary school mate in GRA who has three cars is now using only one, and only occasionally. At first, he tried to show us that he could afford it, and that he was not seriously affected. He would come out with one car today and tomorrow it would be another as his wife used the other. When he tried it for two weeks, he was hit by reality and had to humbly resort to his Haojue motorcycle, the one used by his children for running errands. It’s Keke Napep that is now taking her to her work place.
Me it is not that I’m happy that they increased electricity tariff for band A customers. You know they say you should wet your beard if your neighbour’s catches fire. But all I know is, if they dare hike our tariff, I’ll ask them to just cut the wiring and I’ll resort to my old ways of surviving. In those days who even knew about electricity? Did the people who lived in that generation die because they hadn’t have power? Let them try it and I’ll resort to hurricane lamp to lighten up the house. I already have my charcoal iron since the power is epileptic even as we have it, and it won’t cost much to get my clay pot for storing and cooling water for our consumption. When they removed subsidy on fuel, did I not resort to my bicycle? Did I die? The big neem tree in the house is doing enough, not like the ceiling fan that is blowing hot air these days.
Sometimes I wonder why we are in this mess in this our Nigeria? When Buhari was campaigning, we pinned our hopes on him and surmised that the country would be a better place for all once the Buhari man clinched victory. But what happened after he assumed office? He just ‘threw sand into our eyes’ and kept assuring and reassuring us that things would be better. Look at the present administration also! I thought the story would change when I heard him (Tinubu) speak at the campaign ground in my state. My hopes started dying when he made that abrupt announcement of fuel subsidy removal. What president makes and takes this uncalculated decision! But even me it is now that I understood the negative effects the removal of the subsidy would have on us. Before the development, some of these public affairs analysts and others whose mouths are itching to talk had convinced us that it’d be for the good of us, just the same trick the government had used.
We were told that if the subsidy was removed, the savings would be used to finance other projects that would positively impact on our lives. Me I didn’t see anything good from this policy. Let them just resubsidise and at least my dust-buried motorcycle would be back to life and people like me would feel the impact of the government. If the government thinks that this palliative that they are distributing is enough to ease our suffering then they should have a rethink. Do they always want to see us suffer? Is the suffering they put us in not enough? Just like play, our situation is now synonymous with that of birds that would fight selves over picking grains when you spray it to them on the ground. Every politician who is hardly seen in his constituency will just come one day and ask us to gather under the hot sun to receive a 5kg bag of rice that would hardly last a week for those of us with many children.
Even though I didn’t see the measures he put in place to address hunger in his state, one of the politicians – a very big and influential one in one of the southern states – has told his colleagues the truth, that palliative is not solution to our hardship. If palliative is claiming lives of people due to stampede at the distribution points, what is then its use to the families of the victims? To those big business people, why are they also going the government’s way, why gather people in large numbers before giving them alms! Only in our area, how mosques do we have, are they not up to five? Shouldn’t they use the mosques. Let them identify devoted and poor believers and give them the alms at each mosque. But if you do this, the next day the mosque will be filled to capacity. Even those who are not observing daily prayers will turn up. That is another problem.
Who would think Nigerians could loot warehouses or truckloads of food items! I’m not saying what they did was right or wrong, but the message the action is sending is that people are hungry and even the docile ones are now damning the consequences. Recently at a palliative distribution point, my one-legged neighbour brought home two bags of 5kg bags of rice. He said he had to do it the Nigerian way to secure two bags otherwise it’d be one for him. It wasn’t that hard for him as he managed to survive the stampede with only few bruises. Another neighbour also told me the strategies he’s using to get five plates of free Iftar meals the state government is distributing, but he said one must have connection to achieve that.
The Councilor of our ward who is the ward coordinator of the feeding program is his friend and he gets him three plates every day through the back door. The other two plates, he said he gets them at the distribution centres. His plan is now to convince the Honourable to sell him at least three bags of the rice he stored at his house. The Honourable said since the quantity cooked every day is going round, it’d be wise to not waste everything, and he’s saving one bag evey day so that he’d sell them after the fasting period. He said even the government of his state didn’t start the feeding program until it was almost 10 days after fasting has commenced.
As I lay here soliloquising under this big neem tree which has for years defied the tree fellers of our town, the stick on my watch is tilting towards 6pm, few minutes to break my fast with the usual gruel and ƙosai we receive from the neighbourhood. I’ll have to hurry up now to be at the mosque to await the sadaka which one Alhaji is extending every fasting day. I know my son is by now on a queue to buy ice block for us to calm the stomach down after the day’s beating by the heat.
•Written By Rilwan Muhammad
