LIVING WITHIN MEANS By Michael Ogueke
I remember Sony Okosun’s hit track in 1984, “Which Way Nigeria?”
There has never been anytime it was Eldorado in Nigeria as almost all the songs of yesteryears can testify. Even the self-delusional hypocrites, who to justify their contrived emotions are weaving illusory narratives about an Eldorado under the Umbrella Pirates could not deny the fact that Buhari wasn’t the President when Eedris Abdulkareem sang “Nigeria Jagajaga” & African China came up with his lines, “Food no dey, money no dey, our roads no good ooo…tell me how man wan take survive…?”
All the fees I had to pay including accomodation in year one at the university in 1990 was N613 (six hundred and thirteen naira) but inspite of my parents middle class status, it took some difficulty to assemble that amount & I have to arrive school 2 weeks after classes have started
Yet, we were happier, under less pressure & everyone seem to get by without bitterness, complains & blame on the system.
Why?
Nigerians then were living within their means, no urge for primitive accumulations and vain comparisons with ones neighbours, relations and friends.
Then, apart from senior civil servants, top government officials, expatriate workers of multi-national companies and millionaire businessmen who live in flats & in the GRAs, the rest of our parents lived in one room or 2 rooms apartments, even those that can be classified as middle class then.
It’s normal then for a family of 4 or five to live in one room with a thick curtain seperating the bed area for the privacy of the parents during sleep or to change their clothes.
Those of us our parents as middle class has two rooms, it was common to see the thick curtains seperating the parents bed area in the bedroom too as some younger children sleep on the floor there while the sitting room in most cases has another bed for elderly children or an elderly relation on a visit to sleep on.
In many homes, there are daily roster for chores as0 well as for meals. This helps to reduce waste.
It’s normal to see a woman have 5 — 7 children with the same set of nappies, mackintosh, baby blankets & baby wears she used for the first child. Once the child is above wearing nappies, they are washed, dried properly in the sun and all together with the mackintosh, baby blankets & baby wears are put back in a box with plenty camphor to protect them from insects as they await the arrival of another child. The circle continues until even the 7th child with just 2 or 3 additional nappies to replace torn ones or an old wrapper could be cut to augment the now brown nappies.
The same circle continues for clothes as elder ones pass clothes they have overgrown to younger ones including school uniforms.
There were clear distinction for church or mosque clothes from the ones worn at home. Those for church are not washed regularly and once you put it on, you must respect yourself as any stain or dirt on it attracts the heaviest punishment or beating. Immediately you are back, it’s removed, aired and put back in the box containing camphor.
Additions to this church or mosque clothes are made only through new Christmas or Sallah dresses & once you recieve an addition, any one you have outgrown passes to your younger one.
Almost all of us attended public schools. We started learning to write with wooden slates until we are able to write properly before using exercise books. Even the textbooks are passed on to juniors when you ascend a higher class.
After primary school, the not too bright children who have no aptitude for academics are immediately sent out to learn a handwork, those who showed aptitude for academics and are bright are sent to secondary schools while those with inclination to craft are sent to technical schools. Only the brightest after secondary school go to the university while the less bright after secondary school go join the business world.
In the university, after our parents pay our fees as contained in the charge list issued by the university, we were all given a blanket amount for a month or for the whole semester to take to school. Mine in 1990 was N2,000(two thousand naira)a semester, released in monthly tranches & I know some students who were given less by their parents. Now, is on you to manage the money for feeding & sundry expenses as best you can because you ain’t getting a kobo more after that & you dare not come home. Some students will have to resort to 1-0-1, 0-1-1, 0-1-0, 0-0-1 etc formula for their meals depending on the size of their allowance & avoid unecessary expenses.
Our parents then can save from their meagre incomes to build nice houses in the village where we spent festive holidays with so much happiness, where our parents go when they are on leave & where they retire at old age after service or business.
Today’s Nigeria is better & more prosperous than our yesteryears Nigeria but Nigerians of today are hungrier, more under pressure, suffer gross lack with a freightening personal feeling of inadequacy & financial insecurity.
Why?
Because we now live above our means & our worship of money & power has foisted on us a culture of insatiable greed & primitive accumulations with it’s attendant destruction of natural affections amongst us.
Buhari is not owing any worker salaries, allowances or pension neither is he owing any contractor or supplier but he is the most hated by civil servants, public servants, contractors & many Nigerians.
Why? Because he said & has followed it up with policies that ensures we don’t steal any more from positions & offices of trusts that allows us live fake lives but rather learn to live within our means which is the only way a family, society and a nation can attain sustainable growth.
A worker earning N100,000, lives in a 3 bedroom flat where he pays N600,000 a year & his 4 children attend private schools he pays N80,000 a term. The Director & Perm Sec with salaries of N600,000 — N1m has 20 houses in Nigeria, 3 in America, 2 in Dubai & 2 in London nobody is staying in and he pays thousands of dollars in tax on them every year. All these acquisitions from proceeds of stealing the system dry. Even with all these, he is still not satisfied and will dye his head black, falsify his age, change his employment documents to remain in service & avoid retirement so that he can continue stealing.
The money spent on diapers (pampers) today for just one child is enough to take care of 7 children yesteryears till they finish secondary school and that’s no exaggeration.
Today, parents change clothes for their kids every 6 months with the old ones discarded in refuse dumps.
The amount of writing materials one child today waste from pre nursery, nursery and probably to primary 3 when he starts writing a little properly can be used by 10 children yesteryears to finish kindergarten and Primary 6. This was a waste just one wooden slate saved our parents.
Today, all five or six children of today’s parents, living far above their means from proceeds of looting the system, whether the children have aptitudes for academics or not are pushed into the universities with bought ‘miracle centre’ o’level certificates & jamb results. They continue paying or sexing their way through the university & every year, hundreds of thousands of unemployable graduates are churned out by our tertiary institutions, looking for non-existent jobs.
The blanket amount we were given then as allowances and dared not go home if we waste it taught us to manage our resources and live within our means but todays parents engage in all forms of corruption and cheating to provide lavishly for their children with the disastrous excuse that “my children will not suffer the way I suffered”.
Today, if we can ever be sincere to ourselves, we can see the mentally lazy children with oversized sense of entitlement and incapable of any productive effort, that we are raising.
A man whose salary is N200,000, lives in a high end rented duplex, has 4 kids in high end private schools, has 2 cars, pays his fulltime house wife N100,000 a month with a car he maintains, has 2 side chicks (girlfriends) he rented one bedroom flat & gives N100,000 maintenance allowance each all from proceeds of official corruption is screaming Nigeria is worse under Buhari, even when Buhari is not owing him a single month salary or allowance, because IPPIS & TSA has blocked the stealing activities he is using to fuel a fake unsustainable life style.
Take a good real look around you, these civil and public servants, brief case contractors living above their means, their mentally indolent beneficiaries and dependents like the ones we called Abuja and Lagos big girls that we elevated to celebrities status are the ones screaming loudest about how Nigeria is worse under Buhari.
Nigeria is not worse now. Infact, Nigeria is far more developed and prosperous but our problem is a new breed generation infested with insatiable greed, glorification of money, fame and power. A generation, lacking in decency, morality, moderation, natural empathy and in an inordinate insane race of primitive accumulations to fuel fake unsustainable life styles. A generation that have rejected the age long virtue of living within ones means.
As a parent, forget about the political and religious leaders for a moment and ask yourself which kind of children, which kind of generation am I raising with all the proceeds from looting and cheating the system?
Michael Ogueke, Political Economist & Hotel Management Consultant writes from Port Harcourt. He can be reached by email on michaelogueke@gmail.com.
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