The unimaginable skyrocketing of prices of essential commodities is no news for any Nigerian that visited foodstuff markets in any part of the country in recent weeks.
From staple food items such as rice, maize, beans, guinea-corn, millet to flour products such as semovita and spaghetti noodles, the narrative is the same.
Inflation increases to 12.82% in July — NBS
Inflation rate rises to 12.40% in May- NBS
Of course, the concern is more about foodstuff because feeding is a basic characteristic of living things including humans.
While local rice sold for N450/mudu about four weeks ago in parts of the Federal Capital Territory, it is now N850/mudu.
Other food items affected within the same period include beans which previously sold for N250/mudu and now sells for N400/mudu; maize which price moved from N100/mudu to N300/mudu; guinea-corn which went up from N170/mudu to N350/mudu; and millet which price changed from N200/mudu to N350/mudu.
Although the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has not recently released inflation figures, the cut-throat trend in prices of food items is a credible evidence that decline in Nigeria’s inflation rate as it affects goods and services is yet to begin.
So many factors, natural as well as artificial, account for the current situation in the cost of living. Substantial fraction of the country’s rural population hopelessly live and persevere in poverty.
As poor Nigerians (always full of expectations) continue on a daily basis to keep their dreams alive, hoping (as religious men and women) that there shall be light at the end of the tunnel; somebody somewhere is failing to educate and arm this group of underprivileged Nigerians with all the information they require to adequately understand and appreciate their circumstances.
Proper knowledge of what, how, and why of our collective challenges (whether national or regional) helps to preserve the confidence which citizens have in their leaders.
Knowing why certain things happen also helps vulnerable members of the society to find ways of coping with challenges which solutions may not be forthcoming.
Aside of calming down nerves in the face of national or local phenomena, it oils the lamp that illuminates the heart when darkness (enveloped in disappointments, calamities and failures) covers it.
Sadly, those who have the statutory mandate as public officers to provide this psychological support to millions of Nigerians living in abject distress and hardship do not seem to be doing enough, if they are doing anything at all.
As a socio-political system driven by ideas and human resources, governance has never been a one-man show anywhere.
It has always been a system of shared responsibility.
Public officers as minsters or chief executive officers of MDAs in various sectors of the economy are therefore required (at least, by convention) to hold brief for Mr. President in their respective public positions.
As much as they regularly keep Nigerians abreast with government policies and programmes, ministers are expected to adequately provide citizens with explanations on challenges that are typically irregular in the scheme of everyday life.
In the world of social scientists, specifically economists, the current wave of economic challenges confronting Nigeria is not inexplicable.
If one may ask, where are President Buhari’s cabinet ministers including the Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Muhammad, to fill this communication gap?
Where also is Nigeria’s Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning to educate dozens of millions of Nigerians particularly the countryside inhabitants about the co-relation between a new world order called COVID-19 and the decline in the country’s economy?
Why is no one taking enough time to explain to miserable Nigerians how the drastic drop in the price of crude oil at the international market affects the country’s revenue earnings as well as budget performance in terms of recurrent as well as capital expenditures?
At any time the revenues projected by government tragically drops, entrepreneurs and skilled workers generally experience low patronage.
Many Nigerians actually don’t know the inter-connectivity and interdependence between the various sectors of a country’s economy.
Such people don’t understand how setbacks in one sector affects another.
Six months after the first set of lockdown measures were put in place to contain the spread of COVID-19 in Nigeria, some individuals and even groups are not aware of the damages coronavirus pandemic has inflicted on economies.
Today, even some strong economies in the world are being brought to their knees.
In a country or society where it is literacy, not knowledge, that matters in arguments; where it is fake news, not truth, that trends in the social media; where it is corruption, not integrity, that determines a person’s fame; so much public enlightenment is needed to let people know, for instance, that COVID-19 is a powerful reason to explain the country’s dwindling economy including the struggle by many state governments to meet their monthly obligations to workers.
Consequently, when payment of workers’ salaries become irregular or not paid at all, the businesses of wholesale and retail traders suffer.
When such businesses suffer, other adjunct businesses are also halted.
The man on the street needs to be told that the suspension of international flights has had grave effects on business activities of entrepreneurs.
The same man cannot also understand the link between insecurity and the looming agrarian crisis.
The lingering criminal activities of bandits and kidnappers in states within the northwest geo-political zone and parts of north central have compelled farmers in the affected areas to abandon their farms.
Resurgence of insurgence in Nigerian’s northeast is another indication of insecurity.
Of course, all these directly affect local production of food crops by these agrarian northern communities who have been thrown out of their homes by bandits, kidnappers and insurgents?
The daily briefing by the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 is not enough substitute for the role of ministers in getting citizens properly educated about the exigencies of the new-normal circumstance which Nigeria, like other nations, has found itself.
The Minister of Information as the mouthpiece of government should, as a matter of responsibility, be forthcoming in bridging this information gap.
Many Nigerians still know little about the country’s economy let alone its health. May Allah (SWT) take us out of all our economic predicaments, security challenges, as well as the COVID-19 pandemic and its attendant consequences; amin.
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