Gista Naija : SAD STORIES Of Nigeria’s Poor Citizens Living On Less Than N300 daily

Sunday, April 13, 2014

SAD STORIES Of Nigeria’s Poor Citizens Living On Less Than N300 daily

Despite the recent declaration by the Federal Government that Nigeria is currently Africa’s largest economy, ARUKAINO UMUKORO writes that many Nigerians live under N300 daily

For 37-year-old Mercy John, life could be better. A 2007 graduate of History and International Studies from the University of Uyo, John, who is single, lives with her brother-in-law in a two-room apartment.

She earns N10,000 monthly as employee in an estate agency firm. She has since learnt the art of survival in Uyo, the capital of Akwa Ibom State in Nigeria.

When asked how she coped with the high cost of living in the state capital, John told SUNDAY PUNCH that she preferred to earn a meagre salary rather than stay at home idle.

“There is no job opportunity in the country. I spend my entire salary only a few days after I receive it. It is unbelievable that a graduate in Nigeria undergoes this kind of suffering,” she lamented. The stress of life was evident on her face, which looked older than she claimed.

More than half of the country’s 170 million people live below two dollars or N320 a day. John is one of them.

Tony Olanrewaju is in the same boat. Although he made it to the construction site early that Wednesday morning, Olanrewaju, a building technology graduate from the Osun State College of Technology, is still miles away from his dream job.

His dream job is one that would pay him at least five times what he currently earns as a construction worker in Lagos State, Nigeria’s commercial capital.

At first, he was reluctant to tell our correspondent how much he earned, but after much prodding, he gave in.

“It’s about N15,000 monthly. The only thing I enjoy about this job is that I don’t pay for my transport. But truth is the salary is not enough to take care of my personal needs,” he said.

Now in his mid thirties, Olanrewaju also wants to run his company in the future. That should give him the financial independence he sorely craves for. But his parents have already started pressuring him to get married.

“I try to make them understand that my salary can’t even take care of one person, let alone two. Even if they decided to sponsor my wedding, they won’t be there to help me feed my family and take care of other expenses,” he said.

Based in Iyana-Ipaja, Lagos, Olanrewaju currently squats with his elder brother who he said also takes care of his feeding. “Getting an accommodation in Lagos is very expensive, and I can’t afford that for now,” he noted.

When asked if he knew that Nigeria is now Africa’s largest economy, he laughed.

“It may be for those who are enjoying the country’s money, but not for me. It’s difficult surviving in Lagos. Some of my mates who are also graduates and other young people even earn less than I do,” he said.

Indeed. Like Tony, Juliet Nelson is also in dire straits job-wise.

Having graduated from Rivers State University of Science and Technology, Port Harcourt, and later called to the bar in 2012, Nelson had hoped for a flying start in a profession she believed paid handsomely.

However, despite having a law degree and a diploma in accounting, she’s currently working in a law firm that pays her N15,000 monthly.

She told SUNDAY PUNCH, “I have since worked in two law firms. I was not paid in the first place where I worked. I was told to work out my salvation myself. So, I had to depend on going to court and getting allowances, called court appearance fee. Because I wasn’t handling any legal matter yet, there were times I won’t go to court in a week.

“If I am able to bring litigation cases for the firm, I get 40 per cent, but it doesn’t come all the time. It has not been easy, it is like living from hand to mouth. My salary barely lasts for a few weeks.”

Nelson admitted that she was frustrated.

“I can’t even do anything meaningful, I feel handicapped. When we were in school, they used to tell us that if we could endure the first five years, then we will make it in the law profession. It has not been easy at all. But they say it is a growth process. It is the experience on the job that counts.”

Having been working since 2012, Nelson’s first five years as a lawyer would be marked in 2017. With a current monthly salary of N15,000, it means she would have earned a N540,000 by then.

In some places in Lagos, that amount is the equivalent of a year’s rent for a two-bedroom apartment.

Nelson doesn’t even want to think of the future. “By now I am supposed to have my own apartment. But I don’t. I need a new job, even if it is outside the law profession, as long as it pays well,” she said.

Although Damola Adeoga, a school leaver, is not yet a graduate, N15,000 seemed like a lot of money to him.

This is because he currently earns N8,000 as a teacher in a secondary school in Ogun State.

“I teach pupils in primary five and JSS One. I have been working for about two years and I am trying to save up to further my education. My colleagues who are graduates earn between N13,000 and N20,000, depending on their qualifications,” he told our correspondent.

Another school leaver, who simply identified herself as Jane, earns N10,000 as a sales representative in a Port Harcourt-based newspaper.

She told SUNDAY PUNCH that her salary scarcely lasts for two weeks as she spends almost everything on feeding.

“Also, as a young lady, I have other expenses, I make my hair with N2,000, spend money to buy cream and soap monthly. I’m lucky that I get assistance from my uncles and aunts because they know that what I am being paid is not enough for me. If I have a better job where I can be paid at least N20,000, I will take it,” she said.

For Christiana Boon, who had previously taught in the eastern part of the country where she said she was paid N8,000 per month, N15,000 monthly salary sounded attractive to her.

“I was handling two classes then and there were over 40 children in one class. But I was paid only N8,000. I even had to fight to get that amount. They were paying me N6,500 initially. Still, they would expect one to teach both modules separately,” she said.

Married with two children, 27-year-old Ilem Williams, who has a national diploma in journalism, runs errands to augment his N10,000 monthly salary as an office assistant at the Nigeria Union of Journalists, Cross River State secretariat, Calabar.

Williams, who lives in a one-bedroom apartment with his wife, a trader, and children, described his salary as grossly inadequate.

According to him, from his monthly salary, he saves N2, 000, gives N3, 000 to his wife, and keeps the remaining N5, 000 for other expenses

He said, “My wife has since taken up the responsibility of providing food for the home. I pay the house bills, school fees for one of my children in school now and cater for other little needs. N10, 000 is simply not enough for me.

“At critical times, I resort to seeking assistance from senior colleagues at my workplace. Sometimes I could raise N1, 000 extra from them and that would help me survive for some days.”

Bimbo Adetoye, an attendant at a spare-parts shop in Mokola area of Ibadan, Oyo State, earns N10,000 monthly.

According to her, her sister, who brought her to Ibadan, introduced her to a liquor shop at Adamasingba area. But she left after two months because she could not cope with the overbearing advances from men at the shop.

She said, “I am from a poor home in Akure but I am not a sex hawker. I was promised N500 per day in the liquor shop. But men who came to drink embarrassed me every day with their advances. I complained to the owner but she said I should play along, pretending to love them. I just couldn’t take it anymore and I quit.

“I earn little in salary but because I eat and live with my sister, I am coping with the hardship. I don’t even have a bank account because I don’t have money to save. I spend all my salary on lunch and transport,” she said.

It’s the same bleak story for 27-year-old Atim Itabana.

She holds a national diploma and currently works in a grocery firm, where she is paid N7,000 monthly.

Itabana cannot afford an accommodation.

“A room in a remote part of Uyo goes for N130,000 to N150,000 per year. I cannot cope, that is why I am living with my uncle. It is a pity that a girl like me still depends on my uncle for all my needs. I go to work only to keep myself busy and avoid problems at home,” she told SUNDAY PUNCH.

It is a similar case for a teacher at a nursery and primary school in Osogbo, the Osun State capital, Miss. Bolanle Adebayo. However, she said her N7,500 monthly salary was better than having none.

“I have National Certificate of Education certificate and got married two years ago. I didn’t want to remain idle. So, I started this job recently. They pay me N7,500. I thank God because my husband is working and taking care of me the best way he can, if not, I don’t think my salary would have lasted for more than a week, no matter how I adjust. I pity my colleagues who depend solely on the meagre salary,” she said.

A marketer at a micro-finance bank in Osogbo, Osun State, Miss. Esther Gbolahan, earns N8,000 monthly. She holds a national diploma.

She said, “I don’t eat breakfast most days and my rent is N2,000 a month. Luckily, my office is not very far from my residence, so, I don’t have to pay transport fare. Despite that, it’s not easy. I am doing the work to gain experience, but the money is nothing.”

Thirty two-year-old Yusuf Ayoade, who lives with his parents at Odinjo area of Ibadan, said his inability to secure a good paying job has kept him away from marrying. He works at a bookshop around Bere in the city where he earns N12,000 monthly. But he said only half of the amount goes home with him because he spends N200 daily on lunch at a nearby restaurant.

Asked when he planned to get married and start a new life away from his parents’ home, Ayoade, who is a school leaver, said he had no girlfriend and was not thinking of marriage yet until his finances improved.

“I was an apprentice at a bookshop after my secondary education, because my parents couldn’t afford to send me to a higher institution. I started my business three years later. It was a promising start until fire gutted my shop. I just replenished the stock when it happened and because I got the books on credit, I was hugely indebted. I had no help from anywhere so I ended up as an attendant at a filling station.

“The owner of the shop where I work now is my friend and he agreed that he would help me with a N12,000 monthly salary.”

Afam Okonkwo, who is 30 years old, shares a single-room accommodation with a friend at Loma Linda Estate in Enugu. Though he holds a Higher National Diploma in Mechanical Engineering, he said he had to take up a driver’s job with a telecoms company because driving was the only option he had to make ends meet.

He said, “I did several driving jobs and earned between N10, 000 and N15, 000. I had to leave commercial driving for my present job. If I had continued commercial driving, I probably would have been a driver for the rest of my life.

“I worked hard to pay my school fees at the Institute of Management and Technology because I had no one to sponsor me through school. I am an orphan. My present job is not my ideal kind of job, but it is better than commercial driving.

“I started applying to government ministries, departments and agencies right from my youth service days in Kwara State. I have also sent in my CV to the big private companies and multi-nationals, all to no avail. I also went for the Nigeria Immigration Service recruitment.”

The population of youths aged between 15 and 35 years in Nigeria is estimated to be 64 million. They make up a large percentage of Nigeria’s huge unemployed population.

During the recent NIS recruitment in March, over half a million Nigerians applied for 4,500 vacancies in the NIS. No fewer than 19 persons lost their lives, while many others were injured or had tales of woes to tell about the exercise.

The above stories of Nigerian youths underscore the startling World Bank’s classification of Nigeria among the world’s extremely poor countries.

“The fact is that two-thirds of the world’s extreme poor are concentrated in just five countries: India, China, Nigeria, Bangladesh and the Democratic Republic, of Congo,” the President of the World Bank, Dr. Jim Kim, declared last week Wednesday at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington in advance of the World Bank/IMF Spring Meetings.

Ironically, going by the recent rebasing of the country’s Gross Domestic Product data, Nigeria is currently Africa’s largest economy.

Nigeria’s GDP, which was last updated in 1990, now stands at $509.9bn, way ahead of South Africa’s GDP of $370.3bn at the end of 2013.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the increase in GDP was due to the addition of previously unaccounted industries such as telecoms, music, information technology, online sales, airlines and film production.

However economists have derided this irony, considering the high unemployment rate and cost of living in the country.

Last year, a survey by the NBS said 54 per cent of Nigerian youths, which make a bulk of the country’s population, were unemployed in 2012. Also, the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, noted that the country’s high rate of unemployment was giving her sleepless nights.

This irony is due to the fact that Nigeria, with crude oil as its economic mainstay and a struggling manufacturing sector, is more of a consumer nation than a producing one, noted an economist, Prof. Sheriffdeen Tella.

He said, “This is because we don’t produce what we consume. For example, Nigeria produces crude oil, but we consume refined oil, which we don’t produce. So, most of the time, we create jobs for other nationals outside by importing goods from other countries instead of creating jobs here in Nigeria. Until we go into production, we cannot make any headway.

“From the rebasing, one would also notice that the contribution of industrial goods to the GDP is very low. We have to work on industrialisation. It is okay that the service sector is growing, but in developed countries, the service sector starts growing after the industrial sector has grown. But in our own case, it is different, the industrial sector has not grown, but the service sector is growing.”

Tella further stated that such scenario would not help to generate employment in the country.

He said, “The country can only generate employment from the commercial sector, and not from the industries; whereas the industrial sector is the sector that is supposed to pick up. What we have done is to add more figures to the previous one. The statistics have only been able to show at least that there have been some structural changes in the economy. But the rebasing does not improve the fortunes of the common man on the street.”

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Sunday, April 13, 2014

SAD STORIES Of Nigeria’s Poor Citizens Living On Less Than N300 daily

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