Photo credit: Global Leadership
If I’m not mistaken, my O’level Economics taught me that when too much money chases few goods, prices go up. Of course, when there’s no money to buy commodities, as in goods being more than available money, or even no money, prices will come down.
That’s the curious situation some Nigerian communities are facing now. The prices of some commodities seem to be dropping. But the problem is that, even when it drops to the cost price, people are just not ready to buy.
It’s not as if they don’t need these things. The fact is that the money is just not there. No thanks to the fact that a few people just spent their ‘las cards’ on the twin festive celebrations of Christmas and the new year.
But for most people, awe ti ba’we nle, that is, they had been starving, even before the celebrations.
What do you say about the fact that fuel prices shot up in December. What do you say about the fact that the present salaries being paid to workers fail abjectly to be enough as living wages. What do you say about the fact that until December last year, so many states were not paying the so-called minimum wage?
You have to factor in the fact that nobody in Nigeria enjoys constant power supplies again. We are our own water corporations now. We have to sink bore holes and shallow wells in order to get water.
We also provide our own security, even if the security men only give us a false hope of being secured. This is because in most cases, our security men have day jobs. So, we should understand when they sleep off while securing us.
With the approaching resumption of schools, demands will certainly be made for school fees. Many house rents are due already.
I certainly don’t envy the average Nigerian worker. How does he make ends meet?
Somebody once said the worker must be getting something somewhere if even without being paid a salary he continues going to work. I say not really to that. The fact is that the average worker is ready to borrow money to save his no salary job.
Which employers care about workers’ welfare anymore? How many workers working in life-threatening positions are insured? Have they even been paid the agreed salaries yet?
I tend to think the organised labour have lot of things to think about! Methinks it’s high time Labour had a rethink!!
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