Two days ago, I went out to get a pack of noodles. I had a budget of #6000, which was decent because I bought it a month ago for #4500. On getting to the store, I discovered that it was #7500. I was livid. It was the first time over-budgeting didn’t work for me. Out of annoyance, I decided not to buy it that day and hoped it was because of “Valentine’s season” that there was a hike in the price. I thought that poor people should be allowed to breathe.
Two weeks after Valentine’s, I went to the store to try again. Imagine the rage I developed when I discovered it was now 12,000. Noodles, the so-called Sapa food, the saving grace of many million Nigerians. Now, over 10,000. Is there not a problem when Indomie-generation cannot afford Indomie?
How can a parent explain to their children the amount of money they used to get noodles for ten packs, they now use to buy three?
Would we call prices skyrocketing with over 300% increase inflation? Probably not. Maybe “hyper-hyper inflation.”
The country is hot. People are starving. People are not breathing. Living is hard.
My mind goes to the woman that works tirelessly everyday. She cleans toilets and offices in the morning. In the afternoon, she is a nanny in an average-income household. At night, she serves drinks at a local bar. She gets home with only #5000. But she has no home because she cannot afford it. So, she lives with her four children in a makeshift shelter. And she cannot even afford a pack of noodles for these children.
One of them is asthmatic, and she can never even dream of affording an inhaler for the child. The child lives at a higher risk of death. A malnourished, sick, and uneducated child. Can the poor even breathe?
I hope that things get better for everyone, especially the poor. The ones who might have no access to this article because they cannot afford to. The ones who spend all their years thinking of what to eat in the next few hours. The country forcing them to never think about the future. To the ones who cannot afford to save. To the 5-9s who still live from hand to mouth.
I hope everyone, in whatever capacity possible, has their hearts, minds, and hands extended to those currently suffocating. I hope that even though we might be having it rough, we are grateful that we are at least having it.
Lastly, I hope we recruit ourselves as soldiers against the war of hunger. So that the air might blow around to everyone and even more so that the poor can at least breathe.
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