Opinion: Nigeria: The challenges of survival

By Promise Adiele

I am not an economist, but I am not ignorant of the economic tensions around the world, especially in Nigeria.

I remember my Economics teacher in secondary school. We nicknamed him Adam Smith.

Tall, suave, and debonair, our local Adam Smith made us believe he knew everything about micro and macroeconomic issues.

Now, I wish I can see our local Adam Smith and ask him several economic questions that agitate my mind amid excruciating poverty.

Thinking about poverty, I will not waste my time to recount all the litanies and mimicry associated with Nigeria as the poverty capital of the world. Such indulgences for a writer can be nauseating and disconcerting.

I am aware that there are Nigerians who prefer to live in denial of the creeping economic conditions in the country.

They have an exaggerated adoration of the achievements of this administration that it verges on tomfoolery.

Already, posterity has conferred inward shame on them. They will continue to wallow in degraded and disconsolate sentiment.

Today, survival is on my mind because it is the motivating factor for various economic engagements in Nigeria.

The greatest challenge for millions of people in Nigeria is to survive. Don’t be deceived by all the fake demonstrations on social media and other places.

People are going through harrowing pain to survive.

While millions of people grapple with survival, a few live like kings, unaffected by the agony and pain of their compatriots.

Of course, I am aware that there is class stratification in every society, but the abysmal, yawning gap between the various social classes in Nigeria deserves a critical inquest.

What is the word for people who live below poverty lines in Nigeria? Call it penury, yet it does not adequately capture the level of existence on my mind.

Call it indigence, yet I am not satisfied. While returning from work last week, a seventeen-year-old boy approached my car with a bucket of water and a small cup.

The excitement on his face sharply contrasted the rag he wore as clothes. I was wondering what he wanted from me with a bucket of water.

Surely he wasn’t a beggar because there was a level of dignity about him which beggars ominously lack.

The traffic was dense, so I was forced to stop. Could he be a robber, I didn’t think so. I wound down a little and asked what he wanted.

“Please sir, can I wash your car”? He replied smiling. “How would you wash my car on the road”? I asked. He replied that he had been doing it all day.

The researcher in me instantly came alive.

This is survival at work. Here is an opportunity for me to find out what is going on in the society, car wash on the move, this is unbelievable.

I asked him to drop the bucket and come into the car for a chat. He looked at me suspiciously and declined the invitation.

I pulled out of the traffic, parked, beckoned on him, and we got talking. “Why are you doing what you are doing”? I asked.

“Well sir, I finished secondary school but I want to help my mother to feed my younger ones” he blurted. “What does your mother do”, I asked.

“She sells roasted plantain by the roadside”. He replied. “How old are you”, I asked. “I am seventeen years sir” he replied.

“Do you have O’Level results”? “Yes sir, I have seven credits including English Language and Mathematics”. “What about your father”?

“He died in a motor accident four years ago”. “How did he die”? “He was riding Okada and fell”. “OK, I am sorry about that”.

I noticed that his mood was changing and to brighten him up, I introduced football, the opium of all young people in the world.

“So what team do you support”? “I am an Arsenal fan sir”. “Well, you people cannot win the league this year”.

“Ah oga, we may not win the league but we will qualify for champion’s league”. His face brightened with bewildering optimism.

Having succeeded in lifting the gloom from his face, I returned to the subject at hand. “OK, how much do you make in this traffic car wash business”?

“Sir, sometimes, I make two thousand naira, sometimes one thousand naira. There was a day I made four thousand naira, my highest”.

“Do you charge people before washing their cars”? “No sir, I just do it and they pay me whatever they have. Sometimes, some people don’t even give me anything.

There was one woman that gave me one thousand naira one day, I cried because it was so big”. “What do you want to achieve with this business”? “Well sir, I just want to survive with my family.

If we can just eat every day, we will thank God”. “Don’t you want to go to school anymore”? He laughed. “Sir, survival first before school”. “Have you had any meal since morning”? “Yes sir”.

“What did you eat”? “I ate beans and bread” He smiled. “OK, my friend, I will go now”. I gave him some money, he looked at me and shook his head.

“But sir, I didn’t wash your car”. I told him not to worry, assuring him that my son, who is his age mate, will wash it at home.

He took the money and thanked me. I asked for his phone number and he quickly brandished an old model Nokia phone.

We exchanged phone numbers and I drove off, taking my turn in the traffic gridlock.

While driving home, many issues assailed my mind. I just encountered survival in flesh and blood.

There are millions of children and youths who are faced with the challenge of survival in our country.

They just want to eat and remain alive. Their conditions are contrasted by other indulgences motivated by greed and avarice.

If the traffic car washer is in search of survival, if his mother is also motivated by survival, if the hawker, the digger, those involved in menial jobs are all searching for survival, if survival is their motive, to earn peanuts to eat substandard food and live in a decrepit environment is all they want, that is understandable and excusable.

After all, there is dignity in labour. Unfortunately, their miseries are perpetuated by government policies and many social contradictions. But what is the motivation for those who find themselves in public service and steal billions meant for various social necessities?

The man who has ten billion naira, what is his motivation for embezzling a further 10 billion naira?

The man who has an estate in Dubai, US, Germany, South Africa, and a bloated bank account in Switzerland, what is his motivation?

Sometimes I think that such people deserve psychiatric attention because it defies all intuitive and deductive processes that some people live in this way.

I worry about those who are called to serve the people but unfortunately abuse the opportunity for their insatiable, inordinate craving.

Our public officers, government functionaries, those in one capacity or another should examine their consciences, that is, where consciences exist and ask themselves if they have done well or not.

Those who are sitting on the wealth of this country, siphoning same abroad, should examine their consciences.

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Also, those who take advantage of disadvantaged youths, turning them to thugs and leading them into prostitution or armed robbery should stand on the ground barefoot and raise their hands to heaven.

If conditions that necessitate survival are not improved, one day, the survival instincts will become desperado instincts and all of us, with our air-conditioned cars will find the streets unsafe.