Seven Days Into The New Year... 😪

_{JC Estrada}

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We are now on the last day of the first week of the year, the holidays are now over and people are slowly integrating themselves back into the work spirit.

I’m in a school environment, and the place is getting populated little by little all over again. Students and businesses are trickling in one after the other. I am sure that by Monday, the look of abandonment that had cloaked this place for the past few weeks would be gone for good.

As we all know, January is one of the toughest months of the year. And the reason is a no-brainer. It is the month that comes on the heels of the month in which we take great pleasure in spending a lot of money. We spend December spending all the money we have managed to accumulate throughout the year, and then, in January we have to scrap and push until the end of the month.

But then, who can blame us? The feeling is contagious, and you just want to have a good time or at least show that you are having a good time.

And it is worse in this school environment because shops are barely open and so those that do open are capitalizing on the scarcity and increasing the prices.

_{This is how barren the area looks for now.}

The price of goods rose to an all-time high during the holidays, and the chief of them is petrol, that after the steady increase is still going up! A liter of petrol right now in the east is almost N400, as of a few days ago when I bought some. I don’t know if this is because of the season, or if petrol is truly scarce.

The hike in petrol price is one I have never really understood. At first, we heard that it was because of the flood that was hitting Nigeria, causing the transportation of the petrol to be difficult. Many tanker drivers refused to drive on such roads, this led to scarcity and subsequent inflation. That was understandable.

But the rainy season in Nigeria has been over for weeks now, there has been no more news of floods, why then is it still climbing? Or is it because of the season? Are these guys just increasing the price because they know that people love to travel during this period?

It is sad, but what can we do? With the epileptic power supply in this country, petrol is used to run just about everything we do. So however high they choose to raise the price, many of us would have no choice but to pay it. We can’t help it. But then it doesn’t stop there, because it bleeds on into businesses. The cost of doing business will go up as well and charges will have to go up. And what does this mean? The customers will get the brunt of it.

I am the customer. And I am getting tired I swear!

_{Sergio Souza}

It is just frustrating to go to the market today to get something, and when you return to the same place two days later, you will see that the price has gone up. Nothing is stable anymore, even the things we used to believe could not be touched by inflation have suffered woefully. With every day that goes by, money keeps on losing value. A thousand naira note can no longer buy three liters of fuel, then what is the point of all the zeros?

And as the modus operandi of Nigerian traders, once the price of something goes up, it seldom comes back down. I hope and pray that this case would be different. And as we are getting on into the year, we would be able to find that balance we have been looking for.

One of the best things I am looking forward to in this year is the forthcoming elections that will hold next month. I am tired of making money and seeing it all go with nothing to show for it, everyone is just out to get your money, and you have to hold on tight to it because if you snooze for even a second, it could be fatal.

_{Andrea Piacquadio}

Omo…

It seems I just came here to rant and pour out my frustrations. The year is just seven days old and I don dae tire already. I sure hope that this will serve as a lesson to us all so that when the time comes and we have to make a choice of who will be our next leader, we would be smart and make the wise choice.

But then, I am hopeful. Just as I have always been. I am sure things will work out in the end. There are so many plans and dreams, but it seems life wants to stop you from achieving them. And through it all, we keep on dreaming, we keep on hoping and we keep on planning. Things will surely get better in the end, as long as we do what we are meant to do as citizens, then we are covered.

And hopefully, these tough times will just be another chapter of our success story.

_Pixabay

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_{Thank you for reading. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section below, I would love to know what you are thinking. Till we meet in the next post.}

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_{N.B: Images not sourced are mine.}