By Babs Oyetoro, Clement Adeyi, Olusegun Olanrewaju, Francis Ajuonuma, Seyi Odewale, Ben Adoga, Linus Aleke, David Lawani, and Cajetan Mmuta
Hard times, occasioned by the regime of fuel subsidy removal effected by President Bola Tinubu as soon as he assumed office on May 29 last year have continued to take a toll on the living conditions of the populace.
The intensity of the pain is so high that even the rich also cry. But the segment of the populace that suffers the malaise more is the less privileged, particularly the poorest of the poor.
In most families, things, in the words of the late prose legend, Chinua Achebe, in his classic novel, ‘Things Fall Apart’, have fallen apart and the centre can no longer hold. Their living conditions have degenerated to an alarming proportion, leaving abject poverty, penury, and hunger in its wake.
A lot of people now live from hand to mouth, so much so that after one square meal, they don’t know where the next one would come from.
Scores of Nigerians tell tales of their living conditions and how they have devised strategies for survival, as captured by our reporters.
A civil servant in Abuja, Mr Jonathan Chukwudi, said he has been surviving the hard times through personal discipline, and by cutting down on luxuries and frivolities.
According to him, he has also introduced discipline among his family members, to adjust in line with the economic realities, and to be able to cope.
“As for my family and me, we have been surviving the hard times through discipline. We have learnt to cut down on luxuries and the frivolities we enjoyed when the economy was good.
”For instance, I no longer use my car daily. I drive it to the office once or twice a week. Now, I’d rather use public transport. I only drive the car to the church with my family on Sundays. We use the public transport system to other places. This has helped us to cut down on fuel expenses.
“I no longer organise birthdays for myself, my wife, and my children. Birthdays used to be a regular ceremony in my family. But we now consider it as an unnecessary luxury. Instead, we save and use the money meant for it to take care of other family needs.”
He added, “I no longer engage in unnecessary phone calls. I only make important calls. Even if I do, I use WhatsApp and voice calls. I no longer play videos on my phone. Through this strategy, I save data and the cost of airtime.
“My wife has also devised a strategy to save the cost of cooking gas by supplementing it with charcoal fire. She used to fill gas up to 6kg, but these days she fills 2/3 kg and uses it to cook urgent food. But when she wants to cook grains like beans that take a long time to get done, she uses charcoal. She always has charcoal on standby to fall back on when gas finishes and there is no money to refill.
“My children used to select food based on the quality of food in the store. But these days, they don’t have a choice. The hard times now compel them to eat whatever is available.
”For instance, we now buy water yam, which is cheaper, instead of real yams which are very expensive. We also depend on local rice now, instead of foreign ones. ‘Akamu’ (palp) has become a substitute for tea in the family.
“It’s no longer three square meals in the family. It’s either breakfast and dinner or lunch and dinner. Although the condition is telling on us somehow, we had to devise the strategies to survive, and we are surviving.”
Sixty-one-year-old Adeoluwa Jones, said, “In my family of five, we now survive on 0-0-1, 0-1-0, or 1-0-1, depending on the money on the ground. I sold my only car when I could no longer fuel it to settle some outstanding debts and for family maintenance.
“I now go out by public transport. My daughter goes to school on foot because I often find it difficult to give her money for transportation to school.”
Nojeem Afariogun, an Ikoyi, Lagos State-based civil servant told ThisNigeria, “In my family, we have adopted 0-1-1 square meal formula. We skip breakfast. We only take light lunch and reserve for a heavy dinner instead, to be able to survive if we skip breakfast. It is only the children that we give three compulsory meals during the whole day.
“We reserve what you may call ‘proper’ three meals for the weekends when everybody is at home throughout the day.
*Reduce working days
Similarly, Mrs Bridget Edet, who works at the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA), in Abuja said, “I’ve cut down on the number of days I go to work. These days, I go to work about three days a week, and whenever it is necessary. With this, I cut down the cost of transportation.”
As for feeding, Edet and her colleagues contribute money to buy foodstuff in bulk and share because the little money at individuals’ disposal is not enough to afford an appreciable quantity of foodstuff.
Mr Basil Akpan, who lives in Karu, on the outskirts of Abuja, said, “For a long time now, I have converted my car to ‘kabu-kabu’ (private taxi) when going to work and when returning to be able to make some money from passengers to supplement fuel money.
“Owing to hardship, I no longer eat three square meals like before. If I manage to have breakfast in the office, I skip lunch and have dinner when I return home in the evening. Sometimes, I eat groundnuts and drink water.
“As for my children, anything their mother, who also works, drops for them for lunch before going to work, they eat to survive. There is no more eating in between meals like before. Children’s bread and biscuits which used to be available on the table for them to take slices in between meals are no longer possible.”
*Parents withdraw children from private schools
Some parents have withdrawn their children from far away schools to nearby schools where they can trek to and pick them up back home after the close of the day because they can no longer afford school buses.
Others have withdrawn their children from boarding schools to nearby schools where they can go from home.
A forty-nine-year-old worker who resides in the Ojo axis of Lagos State, Mr Basil Akoni, said, “I had to withdraw my child from a private school to a public school. I had to also seek help from a neighbour who has been teaching my child at home because she is a science student.”
He said he observed that the patronage of private schools in his area had reduced drastically since this economic hardship.
“There is a private school near where I stay the population of the students has gone down and the information available is that some parents are withdrawing their children from the school to public schools because they can no longer afford it. They feel public school will cost them far less compared to what is being demanded at most of the private schools around,” he said.
*Workers trek long distances before boarding buses
A civil servant in Abuja, Joseph Audu, narrates his adjustment programme.
He said, “Life is increasingly becoming miserable for junior staff in the civil service. For instance, my salary and allowances are no longer enough to take care of essential bills in a month.
“To be able to survive, I have taken to farming to supplement my monthly income. We now go to Keffi in Nasarawa State to rent farmland where we cultivate yam, maize, beans, and melon. My wife is also farming vegetables to support the family.
“I also trek some distances to reduce the cost of transportation before I get the vehicle to go to the office.”
Another worker in Lagos, who identified himself as Collins Obi, said he normally treks long distances in the Surulere area before boarding a commercial bus to get to his office in Ajah.
“I don’t have a car, but I’ve cut my expenses on transportation. I now trek distance before boarding a bus to reduce the fare to my destination. Even, since the hike in the pump price of fuel to about N600, I have stopped using my generator because I don’t have the money to fuel it,” said Obi, who resides in the mainland axis of Lagos but works on the island.
For Mrs Angela Attah, a petty trader, “My husband voluntarily resigned from his job because his salary was no longer enough to pay for his transportation to and from his office in a month. This is because if he continued to go to work, he would be working for transporters alone.
A taxi driver, Mr Tunde Atodele, said more than half of the money they make in a day goes to fuel the vehicle alone.
“We are seriously suffering in this country. If my vehicle develops any fault that would warrant the replacement of any of its parts, I borrow money because the prices are now very high,” he says.
John Akanni, a company staff in Victoria Island, Lagos, downloads grief, “I have a family of five and all my children are in public schools. I don’t go home until the end of the month because of the high cost of transportation.”
“We have reduced our outings due to the high cost of transportation, except it is an important event.”
According to him, “It will be difficult for me to stay afloat with my meagre salary if I go home every weekend as l was doing in the past. So, l try to conserve my transport fares for three weeks and use it to supplement the family upkeep for the month.
