THE REALITY on ground is that economic hardship is getting worse since the removal of fuel subsidy by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu when he announced in his inauguration speech on May 29 last year, whereby queues were formed at petrol stations instantly.
Then, the depreciation of the naira to the dollar adds to the woes of Nigerians as price of goods is tied to the exchange rate as almost everything we use is imported or its components. Things are now so bad that the price of an item you bought in the morning would increase when you go to buy another one in the afternoon. Yet, the purchasing power of people has not increased as the minimum wage of N30,000 cannot even buy much for a family of six, much less take them for a whole month, not even including rent, school fees and medical care. However, even this inadequate minimum wage is not being paid by all the states.
Now a bag of rice is between N70,000-N80,000 and counting, and the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) is demanding N1 million as the minimum wage, though reports have it that they may shift ground on it.
The way things are going, we may eventually arrive at the N1 million minimum wage and that would surely be the road to Zimbabwe where you need a sack of naira notes to buy a basic item like soap.
This is more so since as soon as the news filters out that the minimum wage is N1 million, the prices of items would rise as it usually happens, making the salary increase not much of a joy since the traders literally take it away.
I know somebody who was not happy with salary increase in those days because the price of items increased as well.
In any case, though the government has so far tried many ways as palliatives to assuage the devastating impact of fuel subsidy removal, it is apparent that they have not made significant impact. Ironically when states were asked to buy food items and distribute to the people, the prices increased in the markets since the items were mopped up by the government!
It is glaring there was not enough rice and other food items for the billions of naira released to buy them.
Now the government says it would release grains from the Strategic Grain Reserve and distribute them free to the poor. But how many kilos could one get, two or three and for how long? What else afterwards? Can government afford to keep this up? Are we turning into a welfare state by making people poor, making them to loss their dignity and queue for a cup of rice, so to speak?
The government also said it would restart direct cash transfer to the poorest and most vulnerable people to twelve million households. There are already three million people on the programme. The issue is that the poorest of the poor have increased and this would be like a drop in the ocean.
Therefore, the defenders of President Tinubu are correct in one sense that the problem did not start with this administration. But since you are elected, you campaigned to be elected as you have the ‘solution’ to Nigeria’s problem, you are expected to wave the magic wand and not offer excuses however tenable.
While the experts and advocates of fuel subsidy removal have gone mute, bereft of ideas, the lay people are saying instead of spending billions of naira on palliatives and the eventual N1 million minimum wage, I may add, why not bring back the fuel subsidy?
Since the government is unlikely to do that, it should not pretend not to expect the rising cost of items to push us on to the road to Zimbabwe.
