Belove Olocha captures the unlimited grumbles and pains of Nigerians living below a considerable standard of living. She argued the popular chorus that Nigerians live a comfortable lifestyle with one dollar per day which practically, the reverse has been the case. She queried the subsequent N5000 intervention by the federal government to lift 100 million Nigerians from poverty.
The Nigerian National Bureau of Statistics in 2020 (two years ago) carried out a diagnosis on the level of poverty of Nigeria’s fat population of over 200 million, the commission revealed that 40 per cent or 83 million Nigerians live in poverty. Although Nigeria’s poverty profile for 2021 has not yet been released, it was estimated that the number of poor people will increase to 90 million, or 45 per cent of the population, in 2022. Obviously, with the Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed, during her recent dispensation of plans by the federal government to lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty, has indicated that Nigeria’s poverty statistics has surpassed the estimated 90 million to over 100 million, which has set an alarm for unlimited burdens.
The apex banking authority, World Bank, said in 2021, 47.3 per cent of Nigerians, or 98 million people, live in multidimensional poverty. The World bank did this evaluation based on income, and by the access, people have to health, education, and living standard indicators. These include sanitation, drinking water, electricity, and housing.
In comprehensive sentences, Oxford Dictionary defined Poverty as the state of being inferior in quality or insufficient in amount. Poverty is said to exist when people lack the means to satisfy their basic needs. In this context, the identification of poor people first requires a determination of what constitutes basic needs. These may be defined narrowly as “those necessary for survival” or as broadly as “those reflecting the prevailing standard of living in the community.”
While Nigeria suffers in silence and hides their pains behind their smiles, the growing poverty in the country has practically thrown many into a depression pit, hence increasing mental health patients.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), Mental health conditions are increasing worldwide. Mainly because of demographic changes, there has been a 13 per cent rise in mental health conditions and substance use disorders in the last decade (to 2017). Mental health conditions now cause one in five years to live with disability. Around 20 per cent of the world’s children and adolescents have a mental health condition, with suicide the second leading cause of death among 15-29-year-olds. Approximately one in five people in post-conflict settings have a mental health condition.
Mental health conditions can have a substantial effect on all areas of life, such as school or work performance, relationships with family and friends SDS, and the ability to participate in the community. Two of the most common mental health conditions are depression and anxiety.
On the other hand, Nigerians have been justifiably confused by conflicting poverty data presented by President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration and the World Bank, such is expected from a country that can’t account for its growing population and living on the mere data assumption.
In some of his sugar-coating statements, Buhari bragged his administration has lifted 10.5 million Nigerians out of poverty within the past two years. But no sooner had he made the statement that the World Bank asserted that inflation has plunged seven million Nigerians into poverty.
How bad
Speaking in an interview with a 42-year-old man, Franklin Odua, he was in a sober mood, he couldn’t look into my eyes, took a deep sigh. Odua has been wandering in poverty. He was determined to change the narrative of his family to put a smile on his old widow mother by struggling in higher institution with the hope of getting a good job after graduation and living a fulfilled lifestyle. He became a jack of trades to ensure he graduated in flying colours. For him, going to school rewrote the narrative from frypan to fire, the poverty pit got deeper.
After several attempts, his years of hard work in the institution got him no job but at 32, he had to move on with his life. He got married with the hope of things turning around for him, but it was as if fate worked against him. But he had to keep the family running. Married with three kids, Odua earns N50,000 every month to put food on the table for the family, pays house rent, school fees, and other unplanned events.
Arguably, Odua is one of the Nigerians soaked in poverty and worries about how to keep his family with his very small salary and most time run into depression (feelings of severe despondency and dejection. Could also mean a long and severe recession in an economy or market) when there is no one to help.
In a cracked voice, Odua narrated: “I’m a graduate of electronic engineering from the University of Lagos, I finished school in 2005, I was young and very talented. I wanted to do so much with my life and also give back to society. I come from a poor background, my mother is a widow; I struggled to see myself through the high institution. I believe that if I get good grades I will be able to cling a good job and help uplift myself.
“I finished with excellent results, the Government promised good employment and I and few of my colleagues at the time waited but after five years nothing.
“I got married at the age of 32 with no job in sight. I currently have three kids. I live in a rented apartment and catering for my family has become severe. I finally got a job of N50,000 but having to feed my wife and children, paying school fees, has been the hardest. Just last month my first child fell sick and the hospital bill was N85,000.
“As the day goes by it gets worse, not that am not industrious, I have tried my hands on so many things, it’s as though the system is created to fight against the citizens, it’s so depressing because am borrowing to feed my family, I cannot provide the necessary things needed to have a healthy happy family”, this he said in tears.”
One reason for the World Bank’s assertion that seven more million Nigerians have been driven into poverty is the 22 per cent increase in the price of food. Food prices contributed about 60 per cent to Nigeria’s inflation rate of 18 per cent. Rising food prices exacerbate poverty because it reduces the real purchasing power of households, and shifts expenditures away from essential items such as health, education, and housing.
Sadly, an average Nigerian household spends about 56 per cent of its income on food, the highest in the world. Countries like Canada and Australia spend 6.4 per cent, 8.2 per cent, 9.1 per cent, and 9.8 per cent. Nigeria’s high expenditure on food implies that a slight increase in food prices would push more people into multidimensional poverty.
Despite N30, 000 minimum Wage, What Has Changed?
In April 2019, President Muhammadu Buhari signed a new minimum wage bill. The law ushered in a new pay structure for Nigerian workers.
The bill “makes it compulsory for all employers of labour in Nigeria to pay their workers the sum of N30,000.”
The bill, however, excludes persons who are employing less than 25 workers, persons who work in a ship that sails out of Nigeria’s jurisdiction, and other persons who are in other kinds of regulated employment which are accepted by the Act. This came after the Organized Labour said that average workers and citizens of the country are passing through excruciating hardship as a result of inflation on all items. President Buhari assured workers that his administration would continue to provide an enabling environment for high productivity. Rhetorically, what can N30, 000 cater for?
A new report by Picodi, an international e-commerce company has found, Nigeria’s minimum wage cannot cater for the minimum nutritional needs of one adult person in a month, the value of basic food products for the healthy living of an adult in a month, at the beginning of 2022, stood at N40,980, higher than the N30,000 minimum wage. This represents a 15.89 per cent increase compared to the beginning of 2021.
Mr. Odua earns N50,000, and the feeding cost for one adult is N40,980 minus his wife and three children. This is to say nothing has changed since the implementation of the new minimum wage in 2019, as the poverty rate is seemingly the same, where is the balance?
To What Effect?
April 2, 2020, the Federal government kicked off the N5000 invention plan under the leadership of Minister of Humanitarian Services, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Umar Farouk. The monthly N5000 invention plan is geared towards lifting vulnerable households from extreme poverty.
Mr. Franklin Odua was not among the one million Nigerians who benefited from this scheme as this scheme was targeted at extremely poor families living in rural areas. “What can N5,000 do for me in a month, that amount can only cook a pot of soup for my family, meaning the rest of the month we’ll go hungry or start begging on the street for survival”, Odua said.
This invention plan has been faulted by many Nigerians who believe N5000 is a ridiculous amount to give any household to prevent poverty.
In response to this the minister of Humanitarian services Sadiya Umar Farouk said the invention plan has gone a long way to help poor families, she said:
“If you look at the people that we are taking this intervention to, N5,000 means a lot to them because these are poor and vulnerable households and it changes their status, but for you and me, N5,000 is not even enough for us to buy recharge cards, that’s the difference.
“But for these poor people in the communities, you have seen, they were able to save out of that N5,000, if it’s not making any impact, if it’s not changing their economic status, I don’t think anybody will force them to contribute that N1,000 to provide that vehicle for their use. So, N5,000 goes a long way.
“When people say N5,000 does not save people, that is an elitist statement, honestly because we’ve had causes to go to the field, and we have seen these people that when you give them this N5,000, they cried and shed tears because they’ve never seen N5,000 in their lives. So, it goes a long way, it changes their status and by that, it lifts them from one stage to another.”
The question remains, will the N5000 intervention plan be the final solution to bring Nigerians out of the raging hands of poverty?
Mental health surge
Financial difficulties and social adversity have been associated with depression. The high poverty rate of the country, and the difficulties faced by Nigerians every day, continue to increase.
A new study by the World Bank has revealed that 22 per cent of Nigerians, on average, are chronically depressed. “People who live in poverty appear to be at higher risk for mental illnesses. They also report lower levels of happiness, “And there’s growing evidence that levels of depression are higher in poorer countries than in wealthier ones.”
Other researchers have come to similar conclusions that poverty causes depression or higher levels of sadness, though it doesn’t seem to always be caused by poverty itself. It would seem that much of that sadness is based on inhibited brain functioning and self-imposed feelings of inadequacy when one cannot afford basic amenities such as food, cloth, shelter.
Franklin Odua shared his journey fighting depression, he revealed how his inability to provide for his family dragged him into a dark place mentally, he said: “All those years of waiting and hustling under the sun had a toll on my mental health. I used to hear about mental health awareness, I never took it seriously, I thought mad people were just those naked on the street, until I started being a shadow of myself. It made me become a ruthless husband and a harsh father to my kids.
“Children make simple mistakes like breaking a plate or spilling the milk, but due to how we are managing, such mistakes are not allowed. One time I battered my middle child for spilling rice. It made me feel so sad that I did that to my child.
“I was depressed, I still feel that urge of sadness with the current inflation in food and fuel but am currently in therapy- a local therapy if I may call it. I talk to my mother all the time for advice and I pray a lot. My mother’s words have given me hope, even though it’s a false hope of a better tomorrow but it’s getting me through each day.”
Millions of Nigerians have been thrown into economic depression due to the high poverty rate in the nation.
Mental health expert perspective
As damning as the scale of deprivation in Nigeria is, the psychological consequences of poverty are far worse. Most people who are poor have had to deal with several psychological distress, including shame, depression, and lack of self-worth. An article published by the Association for Psychological Science states that people who deal with “stressors” like low income and discrimination are highly susceptible to physical and mental disorders as well as low IQ scores.
The article asserted that the stressful circumstances associated with poverty depress cognitive development. Columbia University’s cognitive neuroscientist, Kimberly Noble, along with other researchers, published a study in 2012, showing that socioeconomic status plays a huge role in brain development.
In 2013, Eldar Shafir, Professor of Behavioral Science and Public Policy at Princeton University, and his colleagues published the results of several experiments in Science magazine. They showed that individuals who were preoccupied with money problems exhibited a decline in cognitive function.
What can be done?
Recommendations excerpted from Financial Nigeria, policymakers at the various tiers and branches of government should be more committed to defusing the ‘ticking time bomb’ of poverty in all of its dimensions. But a more fundamental strategy should focus on the psychosocial components of poverty. These include the social, mental, and emotional factors associated with being poor.
For any strategy tackling poverty to be effective in Nigeria, there are several stereotypes about poverty that need to be dislodged. The poor need social support, not discrimination. Cognitive neuroscience research has disproved the notion that people are poor because they make poor decisions or they don’t try hard enough. A similar misconception also fosters the illusion that rich people are smarter and more hard-working.
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