Is it only Nigeria?
Image by Frantisek Krejci from Pixabay
Each time I read @soulsdetour's blog about her country Bulgaria, I mostly pictured Nigeria at the back of my mind, because there are a lot of similarities. But even at that, there are still a lot of differences in terms of governing ,organizing, economy, management and lifestyle etc.
Nigerian youths protestesting over hard cost of living - (This is a property of Channels Television)
I am only wondering if what is happening in Nigeria at the moment is also felt in other places..? Because it is causing havoc here and it has triggered protest in different states here in Nigeria. Things are highly expensive! Life is not the same for all the lower class, middle class. I know upper class are feeling it, but I don't know if they are feeling it the same as a comon citizen like me.
To help my readers understand the angle I am heading to, I would split this publication into different sections so that you can compare it with your country if it is the same, or you can tell the differences. I need us to discuss this as a forum.
So, I would talk about :
Cost of living in Nigeria
Job Insecurities
Cost of living in Nigeria
The cost of living in Nigeria is extremely high at the moment. In Fact the minimum wage paid by the government to civil servants is way too poor as none of it can even take care of just an individual, talk more of a family.
For instance, the minimum wage paid in Nigeria is thirty thousand naira(#30,000) which is equivalent to about 71 Steem.That's a peanut that cannot really do anything at the moment even in most rural areas here in Nigeria.
Most people who collect that as salary spend even ×5 of that amount in a month. Even at that, it's still not enough. And this statistic is just in the rural area.
People in urban area spend even higher than that in a month. You also need to note that Nigeria is a very big country with over 200,000,000 people living in 36 different big states or what others known as regions. In Fact most of these states are big enough to be a country of it's own.
So, lifestyle in various states varies, same with cost of living.
The question now is, how do this ones survives? This is what I was thinking the whole of last night, I was trying to connect the whole situations and how people are faring now including me.
Using my place as a case study, here is a little statistics of how much things cost.(Even at that, this prices varies depending on the location)
✔️ Buying food in a restaurant would cost you one thousand naira (#1000) to seven thousand naira (#7000) which is equivalent to 2.4 Steem to 16.4 Steem a plate respectively. And this is for low budget plan depending on the type of restaurant.
There are also some restaurants that cost ten thousand naira (#10,000) to thirty thousand naira (#30,000) which is equivalent to 24 Steem to 72 Steem a plate respectively. This is what people would consider luxury. This prices are not considered luxury in Lagos, Owerri and Abuja because the cost of living there are extremely high.
✔️ House rent here in my city is also high. The statistic below shows a rough estimate of what you can expect when it comes to accommodation. Other cities like the ones I mentioned above might be two to three times higher than the statistic below.
| Apartment | Comfortability | Privacy | Naira Price/ year | Steem equivalent/year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single room apartment | ❌ | ❌ | 50,000 to 60,000 | 119 to 144 |
| Self contained | ✅ | ✅ | 250,000 to 450,000 | 595 to 1071 |
| 1 Bed room apartment | ✅ | ✅ | 500,000 to 850,000 | 1190 to 2020 |
✔️Job Insecurities : Even with the poor minimum wage, there are still no jobs. Most of the uber drivers are graduates who studied engineering in higher institution. Most doesn't even get a job. It's a shame that Nigeria is among the first 10 countries with the highest scammers. Though lack of job is not an excuse to engage fraud activities like this, but then, it contribute to it as well.
That's why, today, you see most Nigerians travelling outside the country in search of greener pasture. Nigerians can be found everywhere in the world.
Jobs here are given through connections. Unfortunately, not all jobs are given in merit. Sometimes, you pay heavily for it . This is where corruption comes in and this what has been happening for many years. Would there ever be a change?- A good question to ask.
The cost of everything is high now in Nigeria including transportation, foodstuffs , clothing and electronics. Trust me, most people won't be able to buy a smart phone or laptop ever again due to high prices. Most of these prices are three to four times the original price. I can keep on mentioning other things, but this list would be long.
Most strong sources have shown that these prices would NEVER come down again, instead, they would keep increasing.
And so, the entire public is advised to take care of their gadgets as their prices would keep going even higher.
I overheard someone today saying, it's a dooms day for Nigeria. Well, I don't want to start troubling my mine with this.
Like the use to say; "better days ahead" and I still believe in that. I think at this point Nigerians need that Bob Marley song entitled: "everything is gonna be alright".
How is your country's economy at the moment?
Note: 50% of this post earnings would go to @caro79 for her sister's cancer treatment. A lot of money is still needed for further chemo as the situation is getting worse.
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At the end of last year, for the first time I found out about the Nigerian scams, because people from Bulgaria were affected by some new wave. I was shocked. 😅 When I was in Belgium, an IT specialist told me that the only thing he knows about Bulgaria is that there is a whole university there that trains hackers and fraudsters. Haha, I couldn't convince him that wasn't true. Such is the bad reputation of the Bulgarians in certain parts of the world. Bulgarians, like Nigerians, are scattered all over the world. And a large part of them really contribute only to the negative image that has been created among people.
One of the worst experiences one can have in the nation's capital is taking a taxi. And not only there. But in the capital it seems to be more concentrated. That's why I'm very careful not to have to take a taxi there. And yet, apart from the regular aggressive types, I have come across drivers with two higher educations who once worked as scientists in the academy of sciences - there is the greatest tragedy, where the most brilliant minds take the lowest possible salaries.
I am already convinced that this is a standard everywhere in the world, it just has different dimensions in different countries. Just yesterday I was watching a funny video showing a young girl preparing for her first interview when her mother found out she knew the owner of the company in question. "A job is found with connections in this country (England)," she says, and things took another, completely different turn, as expected. 😄
It's just terrible... Living in Ukraine is also very expensive compared to wages. Things are going much better than in Nigeria but still not good for a comfortable and stable life.
We have very small pensions, my grandmother worked in a kindergarten as a teacher and her pension is 2100 UAH - 175.22 STEEM. If it weren't for the bulldozer's grandfather's pension of 7,000 UAH - 584.07 STEEM, it would simply be impossible for her to survive. Only communal services for gas, water, light, heating, she gave almost the entire pension, not to mention medicine, clothes. Our pensioners who have worked all their lives receive just pennies.
We have an interesting TV program "the world upside down" and there, when pensioners from various European or Asian countries found out, they were simply shocked by our pension, because it is at least 10 times lower than theirs.
It is easier for the younger generation, because the government willingly pays for work. And the government does not consider it necessary to pay pensioners good money for the fact that they worked all their lives for the good of the country.
The reason for this is corruption and war.
I believe that we will cope with the war and will be able to take the next step in the fight against corruption. Thanks for the good question my Nigerian friend.🙏
Almost the same thing here. And as for the pension here.., I forgot to mention that sometimes people here would have to struggle to get pension for many years before it is approved while some don't even get it at all. Sometimes, the government owe them for many years. Most retired civil servants get old and died without seeing their pension.
Also, over here we don't have free medical bills, wether that person is a governement worker or not. The person must pay for all their bills.
I purposefully did not want to mention war because the text would have been long 😀. But here we have Insurgency which has been disturbing some parts of Nigeria for many years now even before the war in your country.
Maybe, you can google about boko haram, fulani herdsmen, Ipob, esn. Apart from that we also have inter states conflicts...etc.
I think your country is also going through it's own hard time just like Nigeria.
But would you say ours is better or more preferable?
Thank you for your feedback.
TEAM 1
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Congratulations! This post has been upvoted through steemcurator04. We support quality posts , good comments anywhere and any tags.Thank you for the suport @o1eh.