I was thinking this morning..... In the past couple of weeks, I had conversations with two of my friends on how it has become unreasonably expensive to drive a car in Nigeria. One that works in Port-Harcourt with his family in Warri, lamented that driving his car to Warri and back now cost him about N100k each weekend. The other revealed that in the last one month, just driving from Sangotedo where he lives to his office at Lagos mainland daily and then to Church in Epe on Sundays, he had spent a total of N400k on petrol. I was still doing my own calculation, when I heard that NNPC had again increased pump price of PMS to N1,030, with independent marketers in different parts of the nation selling for between N1,100 and N1,500.
As I pondered on the likely ripple effect of this recent increase, I stumbled on a passionate and emotional discussion by four ladies on News Central TV. One of the ladies was so emotional about the impact on ordinary Nigerians to the point of tears that she walked off stage.
One lady said that things are so tough that some families, once referred to as middle class, can no longer afford to send their children to school at the same time. The children now take turns to go to school. One will attend this term or this year and the other next term or next year. Chai!
Another of the discussant said she met a family where the mother of the children, who happens to be the bread winner, is now forced to eat every other day so that her children can eat one meal a day. If she eats today, she won't eat the next day.
Yet another added that she was told of a once well to do family that, with the current prices of food, the father and mother now shares one egg while their three children share another one egg, because they can no longer afford to buy more than a crate of egg each month.
If the hitherto middle class are groaning, it is difficult to imagine what the poor are going through. More heart-wrenching is that in the midst of this pervasive poverty and economic strangulation, you still see our political leaders wasting and obscenely displaying our stolen wealth. I was tempted to say they are heartless. Not a fitting description. Wicked? No. How best do we describe them? Oh yeah! They are soulless. Too many leaders and followers are soulless. Only a man without a soul would be blind to the suffering in the land. Mark 8:36.
Stay hopeful. God's got our back.
Happy Sunday!
......Just the thoughts of a certain Wey Mey
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