In 31 days time, it will be new year! Many Nigerians can’t wait to draw the curtain on the year of our Lord twenty twenty-four! For most, it would be the toughest year ever. And the prayers on the lips of many would be for 2025 to be a lot better than the outgoing year.
Before then, Christmas is just three weeks hence; and there is palpable uncertainty in the air. Just last week (effectively in November), it was advertised that a life chicken, the most culled animal at Christmas, was going for N30,000. This implies that a week to Christmas, the price may double. Some may need to cough out a national minimum wage equivalent to buy the damned chick! Same goes for the king of foods at Christmas: rice. A 50kg bag of rice in November went for N100,000. By Christmas, one should expect the price to jump to N140,000 or more; effectively out of reach of many families.
Right from the blast of the year, the economy has been on a stretcher. It was first hit by the devastating devaluation of the Naira, which, for the first time crossed the N1,000 mark in exchange for the American dollar in January. Since then, the national currency has lost 70 per cent of its blood as it exchanges for ~N1,745/$1 in the parallel market, and somewhere not far from there in the official market.
The poor performance of the Naira has helped drag down so many things. Let’s look at inflation: the latest available data shows that October inflation rose to 33.88 per cent. This is enough to dislocate many things in any society. Make no mistake, it is doing just that in Nigeria: marriages are breaking, homes are being shattered, more children are dropping out of school, prostitution and drug abuse are on the increase, terrorists are having to recruit people for a kobo, parents are unable to feed their children, let alone cloth and house them, crime is on the rise, despair and hopelessness are rampant, suicidal thoughts and actual suicides are happening, mental and other kinds of illnesses are commonplace, and Nigerians are dying because they can’t afford medical treatment for curable diseases; morgues are filled up because relatives of the dead can’t afford decent burials made worse by backward cultural practices concerning the dead.
The twin crises of currency collapse and mounting inflation have driven many businesses underground. Micro, small and medium sized businesses have been forced to close down because of harsh economic conditions. Many transnational companies have shipped out of Nigeria because they can’t operate in an economy that is throwing darts at them, the most severe of which is a highly devalued currency. This year alone, no less than a dozen foreign companies have left. Just last month, Pick n Pay, a South African grocery chain had to swallow the bitter pill of selling its 51 per cent stake in its Nigerian subsidiary. The company lasted for less than five years here. In January, ShopRite, another South African grocery store had closed its Kano and another in Abuja in June. Proctor and Gamble, GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi, and Kimberly-Clark, makers of Huggies products had since closed shops. As I was putting this edition of REFLECTIONS! to bed, news came that Holcim, a Swiss building materials company, was selling its 83 per cent stake in Nigerian business, Lafarge, to a Chinese firm. Many oil majors are exiting their joint venture businesses with the federal government. There are less popular brands that have left the country.
Some of the foreign companies that are still operating are surviving on borrowed money in the hope that things will improve in the near future. Take for instance, MTN Nigeria Communication Plc. The telecom operator has been a loss maker since last year, perhaps for the first time since it landed ashore 23 years ago. Because of its huge investment in the country, it just cannot close shop and go. To stay a float, it’s heavily dependent on Commercial Papers borrowing as borrowing from banks is prohibitive. Currently, the Central Bank’s monetary policy rate is 27.5 per cent; meaning that banks will be lending at well over 33 per cent. In a regime of flagging disposable income, borrowing at that rate to do business is hyper risky.
But what you hear government officials say is that they have been able to attract $30 billion worth of foreign direct investments into the country without mentioning the companies, where they are established and what they are doing. Outside of foreign portfolio investments (what you might call fly-by-night investments), no real foreign investments have been created since this government came into office. Much of the energy has been in removing subsidies and taxing the overtaxed. Apart from subsidy on fuel removed last year, electricity consumers in areas designated as Bank A are paying thrice the cost of power.
In effect, many homes have been squeezed financially to enjoy Christmas as they customarily used to. For parents not being able to afford the basics can be agonizing. Having to explain to children why they can’t have rice and chicken at Christmas is not going to be easy for some parents.
But all hope is not lost. A glimmer came last week when the National Bureau of Statistics reported that the economy grew by 3.46 per cent. Not many Nigerians will believe that, but REFLECTIONS! does for the simple reason that if we accept the statistics of a galloping inflation of 33.88 per cent from that agency as accurate, we should also accept the data on gross domestic products (GDP) from the same source.
Though the government is more than eager to hug the good news as a result of its economic policies, the outcome is in spite of government efforts; it should be better attributed to the ingenuity and resourcefulness of Nigerians as a people.
The implementation of the new minimum wages across the country will also come in handy for some people in celebrating Christmas, just as the extension of charitable giving for which Nigerians are very accustomed to. However, not being able to celebrate Christmas is not enough for one to despair. After all, Christmas is not so much about merry makings as it is about recognizing its real essence: the coming of the Saviour of mankind.
SHORT TAKE:
That Boat Capsize In Niger
The other month it was the death of many people in Jigawa State due to a fuel tanker explosion. Hundreds lost their lives, and government did the only thing it is always known to do: commiserate. It does not lift a finger to prevent a repeat of such avoidable occurrences. Which explains why the death of many in the ill fated boat incident in Niger State is particularly troubling. By Friday, 29 November, it was confirmed that at least 27 people had died and more than 100 missing after a boat carrying about 200 passengers, mostly women, capsized in the river.
One can close his eyes and tell the reasons why it happened: a rickety boat effectively overloaded. Worse, the passengers would not wear functional lifejackets. Question: What is the purpose of having the Nigerian Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) if it cannot enforce simple safety rules on our waterways?
Unfortunately, this would not be the last time it would happen. Typically Nigerian!
Esiere is a former journalist!
