Gbemisola Ademola, a 44-year-old mother of five children, could stock up food items for the month and buy clothing and other household items last year. But with inflation at a 28-year high, she now buys less of everything and can only stock up daily food items and cannot afford to buy clothing or any extra household items now. “I now shop for a meal as I cannot afford to stock up as I usually did,” said Ademola, who works as an accountant in an audit firm in Ikeja, Lagos.
“My N300,000 income can’t get me the comfortable life I had. Prices of everything are surging but my income has been the same for three years,” she explained. “Buying new clothes for my children and going to the mall which we usually did are now luxury,” she noted.
Real wages have fallen in Nigeria by over 100 percent, according to experts, making Nigerians face increasing pressures daily and forcing them to make hard choices as prices of items continue to rise. Ekechi Chukwuka, a 35-year-old salesman, said with his N250,000 monthly income, living has become a daily struggle. He noted that the soaring food and transportation costs have made things worse for his family of four in recent months.
To add to this, Chukwuka received a notice from his organisation that salaries won’t be paid by the year’s end as the business plans to go through a restructuring process. This is the most frustrating news yet for Chukwuka, who is desperate to provide good lives for his family. “I can no longer affo.