President Tinubu Worsening The Hardship Burden Of Nigerians
LAGOS OCTOBER 23RD (NEWSRANGERS)-Nigerians have yet to know respite in the 16-month-old administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. From the inauguration podium where the new President announced that “subsidy is gone”, Nigerians have been thrown into the abyss of astronomical petrol prices that have birthed unprecedented rising inflation, soaring food prices and high unemployment rate. It has since been the season of relentless acute hunger and food insecurity.
Nigerians woke up to the latest sharp and abrupt increase in petrol price from the official N865 per litre early this month to N1,030 per litre. From N175 per litre in May 2023, petrol price has gone through astronomical increases to peak at the current price.
It is unthinkable that despite the EndBadGovernance and FearlessInOctober protests engaged by Nigerians in two months to register their displeasure with the anti-people policies of the government, the administration would mindlessly increase pump price to further tighten the hardship noose on Nigerians. This is an indication that this government is not only insensitive and strategy-deficient, but it is also incompetent to perform its primary duty of delivering welfare and security to the people.
The multidimensional implications of these hostile policies are dire. Nigerians, including schoolchildren, have had to go hungry. There is a high likelihood of the already poor child and maternal mortality rates rising due to malnutrition and hunger. Prices of goods and services have shot up astronomically. More children are out of school due to the high cost of school fees.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics monthly inflation report, the average price of commodities moved progressively and astronomically from 22.41 per cent in May to peak at 28.92 per cent in December 2023, while the headline inflation rate climbed to 32.15 per cent in August 2024 up from the 25.80 per cent recorded in August 2023.
Consequently, staple foods are out of the reach of the poor and the middle class. According to the NBS, the average price of 1kg of brown beans increased by 27 per cent on a year-on-year basis from N545.61 in August 2022 to N692.95 in August 2023 and now N2,444.81 in July 2024, representing 262.98 per cent price increase. The commodity now sells for an average of N3, 500, while a bag costs an average of N210, 000.
The data agency said the average price of 1kg of yam tuber rose by 42.80 percent on a year-on-year basis from N403.65 in August 2022 to N576.39 in August 2023, and jumped to N1,802.84 in July 2024. NBS also reported that the average price of garri increased by 49.16 percent on a year-on-year-basis, from N305.92 in August 2022 to N456.32 in August 2023, and N1,151.79 in July 2024. The current average price of garri is now N1,200. One kg of cooking gas now goes for N1,500. Sadly, the current market prices of commodities have made nonsense of the N70,000 minimum wage as, at an average cost of N210 per bag, the price of beans will pay minimum wage three times over. The NBS also said the country’s unemployment rate increased to 5.3 percent in Q1 of 2024 from 5.0 percent in Q3 of 2023.
This horrible situation confirms the World Food Programme projection that the 18.6 people suffering from acute hunger in Nigeria at the end of 2023 would increase to 26.5 million in the June-August lean season, and its ranking as the 109th out of 125 countries in the 2023 Global Hunger Index. There can be no better indication that Nigeria is headed for a food crisis if urgent measure is not taken.
The government’s reforms have proved unhelpful as its body language is out of tune with its interventions. For instance, printing money without controlling wasteful spending and cutting excesses has pushed up inflation. This has conspired with other financial missteps to make inflation escalate for 13 consecutive months.
The Naira currently exchanges at an average of N1,700, down from N460 in May 2023, while the interest rate upped to 26.75 per cent from 11 per cent in the past two years.
Nigerians cannot be punished for this overt recklessness.
These horrifying statistics, despite early warnings and projections, show that the Nigerian government does not have a workable strategy to tame hunger and hardship.
Going forward, the government should dump white elephant projects and concentrate on mitigating hardship by crafting effective strategies to tame inflation and reflate the economy.
Stringent actions must be taken to stimulate creative activities to engage the teeming youth population by fixing the country’s abysmal power situation. The gains of subsidy removal should be transparently injected into productive ventures while cutting wastages and blocking loopholes in governance to ameliorate the dire situation.
The Federal Government should give its reforms a human face. Nigerians must not all die before the reforms yield the so-called dividends. There must be home-grown solutions to the economic downturn beyond the cut-throat solutions being dictated by international organisations. The government should take urgent steps to avoid another protest by labour and the people.
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Posted by News Rangers
on Oct 23 2024. Filed under National.
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