There was a time, when the monetary value of one Naira was more than a United States (US) Dollar. Those were the days of milk and honey in our dear country, Nigeria; days when the total revenue of the country overwhelmingly superseded the population, when our government could magnanimously and superfluously come to the rescue of any other nation in penury and squalor; when Nigerian are highly respected outside the shores of Nigeria and treated with dignity, when an average Nigeria could brag of spending above 4 Dollars a day; when a neighbouring country Ghana, for instance, could perch on our exuberant resources for survival; they havened in Nigeria for years. Days, when workers' earning overrides their necessary wants and demands, yet reserve some as their savings; a time when Nigeria was the pride and giant of Africa, though, looking at the status quo, Nigeria giant rating in African continent is questionable.
Peradventure, as it stands now, an average Nigerian can barely afford his food twice daily because three-square meal is now a history to them, not to talk of clothing, health and other inevitable needs. Nigeria is in an economic recession; prices of commodities in the market have all risen devastatingly, ready to exceed the horizon, and no longer coming down any time sooner. Meanwhile, prices of essential commodities such as Petrol, Garri, Oil, among others are all in the same marathon race. Although all prices are no longer the same as before, yet workers' remuneration remains stagnant in different establishment and organizations.
The good old days are gone and far from our reach, it's quite disheartening and appalling for Nigeria owing to the fact that they now languish in poverty and destitution, and Nigerians are fervently yearning for its return whenever they sense these nostalgic memories of good living in retrospect. I long for the good old days, workers do and above all Nigerians long for high standard of living. Workers in our dear country pains to our economic recession owing to the fact that their Salaries have remained the same as of the time Nigeria experienced Oil boom and it's very devastating due to the fact that the earnings aren't longer sufficient for their upkeep, let alone with that of their wards
One Naira is tantamount to above N400 and with this hole-leaping margin between One Naira and Dollar; things are gone haywire in the market all to the detriment of workers and Nigerians. Looking at the status quo in Nigeria, workers are in dire need of sufficient earnings so as to make both ends meet in their respective homes because, “one is what one eats” and when one don't feed on quality and health nourishing foods, one tend not to exercise his/her duties and obligations appropriately.
Nonetheless, an adage says that a hungry man is an angry man, when one is in short of the necessities for survival; there is every tendency that one would be angry with his employer, his colleagues, his surrounding, and the government and even with what he does for life sustenance. Perhaps, when a worker precisely, is angry with himself and his occupation, underwhelming performance will be its eventual result. And when it happens, sub-standard products and goods are the outcome. Thus, I guess that should be one of the major rationales, why Nigeria end up producing inadequate products which Nigerians are even scared to utilize and patronize, not to talk of exporting them to other countries. Certainly no rational country can patronize such. Is it not so excruciatingly awkward? That expatriates in our country come over here with their food, wears, cooking utensils and even water, one can imagine! That impression is to bare to us that they are paranoid of our products. What a slap on our faces and that of our government who spearheaded this odorous stigma in our country. Moreover, one cannot blame these foreigners due to the fact that we live in a country where everything is virtually imported, our government import food such a rice, beans and as low as importing toothpick, even when we are endowed with fertile land and population(Man-power).
My heart bleeds to the fact that we have these God given endowments and man power here in our blessed country yet our government neglects them all. Our corrupt government opted and preferred importing in exchange with our nature resources that are supposed to be reserved if those things are manufactured here. Rather for them to inspire and encourage our workers and local producer in our own country they alternate making our countries' products superior to ours, and later we expect them to come here and patronize those acclaimed inferior goods of ours.
For instance, we import refined oil where as we have our crude oil and refineries all in redundancies here, our government import police wears and other security agencies' including belts, shoes etc while we blatantly allow talented dress makers and shoe makers in Abia state (Aba) especially, and other states to produce inferior products owing to the very fact that they lack sophisticated facilities and equipments to fly high and produce world competing products, The list goes on and on, they are too numerous to enumerate. Nigeria as a country can produce virtually all these things here and even export them for foreign exchange, but our government is not coming up with incentives and encouragement to propel and boost our producing strength, rather they drag our individual efforts to mud.
However, it has made our country a mono-economy because ever since crude oil was discovered in Nigeria, we have embraced oil hopelessly and have outrageously dumped all other sources of revenue. Our government forsook agriculture, manufacturing and others while country like Malaysia that are less endowed when juxtaposed with Nigeria in terms of nature endowments, is now ranking among the best palm oil producing country and have enriched the country with agriculture despite the fact that they took Palm tree seedlings from Nigeria some years back as speculation may have it.
It's quite visible to the blind and audible to the deaf that our country is in an economic quagmire and as such in hyper inflation period, with other uncertainties that have engulfed the economic progression of Nigeria which on a daily basis is eroding the magnitude of her citizens' modus vivendi. Consequently, workers are less remunerated amidst high price of commodities in the market, therefore, to make both ends meet, some workers engage in rash doings such as bribing, embezzlement, robbery, scam, fraud etc all in an attempt to keep up to daily needs and inevitable wants. Is it not quite egregious and anathema? that our government is the architect of all this brouhaha and mess.
To crown it all, it's a clarion call to our government, directors, C.E.Os, heads and managers of business organisation and ventures to re-strategize, look into their workers' predicament situation and sort for a way to increase their remuneration so that they can march up with this inflation, Although economist have it that salary earners suffer in time of inflation because their earnings would remain stagnant while other things climb the roof. ASUU' recent strike, warning strike as they called, was as a result of poor remuneration and treatment. Workers are sacred and should be treated as such because they are the working strength of any nations so they should be well paid most especially in this present economic anarchy which our incumbent government has pioneered.
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