Left with their farms, petty trading, craft making and other menial jobs, many Nigerian rural dwellers have little opportunities to better their lives. Today, they face the same harsh economic realities with folks in the cities, where opportunities abound, a human rights group observed. “I live in Ogidi-Ijumu in Kogi State, I buy fuel at N1,400 per litre, cement that is produced in nearby Obajana is more expensive here, even our garri is out of reach because food merchants from cities, who buy in bulk, pay more.
Virtually, everything vendors bring here are almost twice the price in the city markets. Life is harsher in rural areas now unlike before,” Jolomi Okun, a primary school teacher and a rural dweller, decried. With the heavily polluted waters, creeks destroyed by militancy activities, little farmlands rendered infertile by oil spillage, rural dwellers in Sagbama in Bayelsa, and other coastal towns in the Niger Delta region, are finding it difficult to earn a living.
Read also: More worries as economic hardship worsens mental health crisis “I cannot fish again because pollution has killed the fishes, I pay same amount to buy airtime and data for my calls and social media, one sachet of pure water is N50 because of our salt water, bread and meat are luxury here. So, we are barely living here despite our rich crude oil resources,” Hopeful Berekemo, a commercial boat driver in Sagbama said. He decried the decline in business as many rural dwellers cannot afford the .
