Ordinary Nigerian citizens are not smiling due to the hunger and hardship brought upon them by the present administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s policies.
In the past three years, Nigerians have been made to go through a harrowing experience that has left many families undergoing untold hardship and pains.
Across the country, the reality on the streets is tense. Economic pressures, stubbornly high inflation, and persistent security concerns have significantly impacted the mood and purchasing power of everyday Nigerian, making it incredibly tough for many.
The current nationwide sentiment reflects several converging realities with squeezed and declining purchasing power despite what the government term as policy interventions.
The cost of living remains exceptionally high just as Inflation has drastically reduced the value of the Naira, leaving many families struggling to afford basic daily needs and forcing shifts in household feeding schemes.
Insecurity is another form of malaise that has refused to go away. From kidnappings to community attacks, the pervasive feeling of insecurity across various regions is a massive source of anxiety and outrage for the masses.
The “Suffering and Smiling” syndrome has taken another dimension. While Nigerians have historically been renowned for resilience and humor in the face of hardship, widespread hardship has largely replaced that endurance with groaning and demands for tangible relief.
The story is not different in Plateau State as a majority of the masses have been left to groaning and gnashing of teeth as they are faced with the daunting task of coping with the current situation.
As the Governor Caleb Mutfwang administration clocked three years on May 29th, PlateauChroniclez.com went into the streets of Jos to get the feelings of the people and the responses were that of gloom, despondency, hopelessness, misery and a desperation to survive.
Life in Jos has been really terrible: Sam Durojaiye Adetoki
Life in Jos today has been really terrible. As a family man, feeding, school fees, house rent, are all very unbearable. The policies of the government, both federal and state, are not helping matters. Removing subsidy has not changed anything particularly. Sense of insecurity is increasing. Nobody is safe, nowhere is comfortable.
So many things need to be done to fix the economy and security. No where is safe. Kidnappers and terrorists are now having a field day. We now have children of two, four years old in captivity. That’s not a country we should be proud of. Because if our government are thinking of politics, and our two-year-old are being kidnapped, you can imagine the kind of cry that child will be crying.
Our teachers have failed us too because if I were them, they should all go on strike. How can you keep a two-year-old in captivity and you’re still working? Let all states go on strike on that issue. They will bring back those children.
The government should come to our aid: Bravisco Guguang Ariwa Chokalin Adamawa
‘The situation in the country and the state has affected me and my family because things are very expensive now, and we are beginning to live above how we earn.
“We don’t earn much like before and the purchasing power has reduced drastically. Before this government came into power with a lot of positive promises, things were cheap and a bit okay, but now, the cost of living has skyrocketed. Fuel price was okay, dollar too. But now that fuel price is high, dollar is high, things are expensive.
“The money you earn now cannot even take you for a week. You go to the market, things are very expensive. Everybody will tell you that “na so he be, na so he be.” You know all those kind of things? Somebody that is selling even an old stock that he bought at N1,000 will sell you 5,000.
“And it’s an old stock of maybe 7 months or 1 year or 2 years. You know, generally everybody just makes things very difficult for everybody in society, and it’s not easy like that. You know? So, people will usually work triple time to meet up to the hard challenges of the society. So, it’s not easy.
“There is nobody that understands how to make the life of citizens better than the government. They have the portfolio. They have the documentation. It’s just implementation and genuine intention. The government just don’t want to. They pay less attention to a lot of things.
“They can regulate some of these things. There are some other things that the government has been doing, all this giving out loans, giving out support, giving out grants. You know, some of those incentive they give to government staff.
“What do they call it? Palliative, whatever. You know, some of these things happen. They share rice, they do these things. Yes, but it’s not enough. They can do a lot better. Just make a good society and make sure that these policies are implemented properly. It will help build the society and to lessen things down.
“In Plateau State, no one is safe. Attacks and killings every day. It was not like this before. But I am optimistic that things will change by the grace of God. Na only God na Hin dey keep us safe. Na wetin I fit talk now.”
We are really suffering: Shama Rose
“Truly, the situation is very bad. As a petty trader, I find it very difficult to take care of my family. You can see things for yourself. People don’t have money to buy things like they used to do. Even now, as you see me talking, I have to go for a house help work so that I can sustain my family. And in that, the salary is not much.
“And in my age, I have BP. When you collect the salary, it goes for BP, rheumatism, talk less of me to assist the children and my own grandchildren. I cannot even take care of myself, I cannot. So when you calculate now we are in situation of what we call mathematics.
“Because the little you have, you have to do your mathematics.You tell yourself, I’m going out, how much will it cost me, how much am I going to do this, how much I’m I going to do that. Like now as you see me, I’m going to JUTH. I collected the little salary, but it’s finished. I have to go to somebody.
Now as you see me, I’m waiting for the the transfer for it to take me to JUTH. When I come back, now tell me, you received 20,000, out of 20,000 you paid debts, how much? And fuel, as they raise up the issue of fuel, it affected me. I cannot travel. Everything now is transfer, transfer, transfer. It’s another expenses.
“The government should please look at the poor masses, let them bring down the issue of fuel subsidy so that everything in the market can go back to normalcy. We are really suffering.”
Government should help us: Salome Ilya
“Things have become unbearable in this Jos but as usual, we are managing. Things have become so expensive and very costly. So, we used to manage everything. If you buy goods to sell, the money will not come out let alone gaining profit. So, that’s how we are managing everything now.
“We are just trying our best, We go and buy so we can sell, in order to get money to feed ourselves, get money for school fees, and get money for fertilizer; that is how we are doing it to manage.
“The government should help us and let us do our little trading properly in the places where we operate. Also, they should reduce the price of fertilizer so that we can farm and get food to eat, and also be able to afford to buy it, because everything is expensive.
“Fertilizer is also expensive, which is why food items have become expensive; there is no way for us to buy things cheaply.
The hardship is becoming unbearable: Barnabas Nnemban
“Honestly, the current economic situation of the country has affected the standard of living of the common man.
“There is price hike virtually everywhere and normally, this affects the standard of living of the citizens of the country and the state in particular. What is happening in Nigeria, if I say it has not seriously damaged the family level, the society, that will be an understatement.
“You know price hikes normally make our purchasing power fall. You know, what you normally buy with maybe N50,000 before now, because of the price hike or the inflation, you buy it for a higher price.
“So definitely the purchasing power falls and the standard of living equally falls. And that will definitely create more gap between the very rich and the extremely poor. Like in Nigeria, there’s no middle class.
“There’s no middle class at all. Middle class are the working class people. Or what working class is supposed to have achieved or what they suppose to have been getting, because of the price hike or inflation, there’s no difference between them and the poor people now.
“My advice to the government both at the federal and state levels is that they should be serious with governance. Aside from being serious with governance, they should formulate actual policies and push towards implementing it.
“You know in Nigeria, the problem is they will come up with good policies, but they don’t implement them. And implementation, even if they tried to introduce it, they leave it halfway. And no country grows without fully implementing its policies, because that is what makes the difference.
“You can imagine, third-world countries that we started with have gone places. Okay, like Dubai. Where was Dubai? Even Middle East countries, where were they? They were nowhere to be found in the 60s, 70s, and Nigeria was ahead.
“But see where they are. Because when they formulate policies, they implement them to the letter. And there’s no corruption. It’s zero tolerance to corruption. In Nigeria, we celebrate corruption. We give them traditional titles. You give them front seats in the church, and nobody frowns at it, and nobody asks questions.
“You can imagine if corruption in Nigeria is reduced to just 20%—I’m not saying all, just 20%. Do you know how much the government will save or can save? And that can be put back to developmental projects, and we go places.”