Hello folks, I hope you all have been holding strong and keeping your hopes alive. I will be focusing on just an aspect of my thoughts in this blog, while I share others in subsequent blogs.
In the late 80s, I recall following my elder sister to the market with a list of items to be bought from the market. This list usually has a cost indicated across each item courtesy of my mum who sits at home to determine what the market price is, based on the last time she bought the goods (smiles). We go to the market every third Saturday of the month, to stock the house with foodstuff and groceries.
I equally remember that in the early 90s when I was considered grown, my mum still adopts the same style of sending me to the market with a list of items to be bought from the markets. The prices she put against each item were always exact when whenever I get to the market. i.e prices of goods were consistent over time, not the daily changes we see in Nigeria today. This is a tradition I took with me from my family of orientation to my family of procreation and it has worked for me. However, the experience now is a world apart from what it used to be. There is a clear cut in the approach of the past to the present. No thanks to the governing system that is obtainable in Nigeria today, which speaks to the uncontrollable inflation rate, unstable quality of the same item, reduced sizes of the same item and the unjustifiable increase in price.
You can never see the item you bought a month ago at the same price if you go to the market 2 weeks after. Isn’t this worrisome? The shocking position is that the governance of the country appears recycled, with the same circle of people governing at different times yet no consistency in economic control. Today, stocking food stuff in desired quantity is beginning to reduce on the premise that income does not commensurate with the increase in prices of desired goods. The dynamic rate at which prices of goods are now alarming and disturbing which brings me to my topic “where is the Nigeria I grew up in”. I learnt how to use just little condiments/seasonings to cook just to taste but today, you tend to use more quantity of the same brand and still you tend not to get the desired taste. This is because of a reduction in the quality of the item. What is obtainable now is that you pay more for a lesser quality i.e the worth of the items bought is highly overrated. The prices of rice, beans, tomatoes, pepper amongst other staple food items recorded significant increases across major markets in Lagos State, as traders lament the sudden increase in transport costs. For instance, the price of a 200g carton of Noodles increased by 24.63% to sell for an average of N4,238 when compared to an initial average of N3,400 recorded in the previous month.
There are indices that are responsible for the identified changes e.g cost of production and distribution which includes unstable electricity, bad roads (transportation), fuel scarcity and many more………a lot to say, please stay tuned for more gist on the subject matter.
M.A.
Motunrayo Awomolo
Linear Regression