The cost of living in my country is presently trying to kill the living. At this point, people are not really living lives, they’re basically just surviving. Living from hand to mouth as they try to make do with what they can lay their hands on. It’s not been easy at all, and the more we try to make it work, the more it seems to get worse.
And to cap it all up, we seem to be cursed with a government that doesn’t care about our well-being and a people that choose never to hold them accountable for the evils that they do to us. Life just seems to be playing out before us. None of us asked to be a part of this theatre, but we’re in it all the same. The game is rigged, but not in our favor. And we have no choice but to play, because we’re already in it, whether we like it or not.
Now, these days, every money we make seems to go right into feeding and transport. You’ll work for an entire month, and you’ll use it all to buy food and pay for transportation. At the end of the day, you’ll see nothing tangible that you’ve done with the money. There was a time when we used to save money regularly, however, it's so difficult to do that these days. How would we? When a few days after saving the money, you’d find out that you need that same money to save you!
I’m a remote worker, and as such, I rarely go out except when I want to. Most of the time, the only thing that takes me out of the house are errands and strolls. Many of them are trekkable, and for others, I’d take the appropriate transportation. And with time, it has only gotten worse.
Yesterday I went to buy petrol and I found out that the price has increased back to N900+. In the past few weeks, we had been buying fuel at around N830, but that now seems to be a thing of the past. How the hell are we going to cope with such exorbitant billing? For power, we use post-paid meters, so we still have to pay the bills every month, whether we have light or not. And since this year, the bill has been consistently over 16k.
There are just so many bills to pay, and so many things to do, and where is the money to do all these things? How can we cope when there seem to be so many things working against us? At this point, I’m just tired. Because no matter how I look at it, I don’t even see how things will get better.
So now, will relocation make my situation any better? Honestly, I don’t think that it will. Because the situation here in Lagos is no different from the one in Imo or Abuja, after all, the economy is an equal opportunity ass-whooper, it’s not dealing with us based on our location. But then, relocation might be better in a way.
Here, our power is kind of epileptic, but I know places in Lagos where they have a more steady power supply. Moving there will save me a lot. I won’t have to buy fuel so much anymore, and the electricity bills I pay every month will be put to good use. Also, staying in a more exposed environment would mean being exposed to more like-minded people and better opportunities.
The only downside to all this is the fact that it would be a bit expensive. Rent in such places would be high, but depending on how you handle it, it shouldn’t be all that hard to surmount.
Anyway, life goes on. As long as there is life, then there will always be a way. We’re going to make this work, one way or the other. We’ll keep fighting and in the end, we’ll find a way to get everything that we want. I just hope that with time, the economy will become more favorable for us. Because we deserve it after everything we’ve been through.
