Juliet Buna
The administration of President Bola Tinubu has claimed that Nigeria currently has the lowest living costs in Africa.
A statement released by the presidency emphasized that President Bola Tinubu’s is dedicated to addressing economic and security challenges but the government’s reforms may bring immediate pains which are envisioned to usher in prosperity in the medium and long term.
The Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, released the said statement titled ‘Atiku Abubakar and his new hobby’ in response to criticisms from Atiku Abubakar, the Peoples Democratic Party’s 2023 presidential candidate.
Atiku had criticized Tinubu’s economic policies, attributing them to dashed hopes, increased pain, and growing despair among Nigerians.
“His claim that the government’s policies have created intense cost of living pressures are also not grounded on facts as recent comparative cost of living indices show that Nigerians still enjoy the lowest cost of living in Africa.”
Onanuga made this claim amid the prevailing challenges of soaring inflation and increase in food and transport prices. This prompted the verification of his assertion that Nigeria has the lowest cost of living in Africa.
VERIFICATION
N-VA’s verification revealed that Nigeria ranks 24th in the cost of living index on Numbeo. Numbeo is the world’s largest cost of living database with a crowd-sourced global database of quality of life data such as housing indicators, perceived crime rates, healthcare quality, transport quality, and other statistics.
The ranking supports the statement made by Onanuga as it places Nigeria among the countries with a relatively lower cost of living in Africa with a 19.3 cost of living index, contrasting with Ivory Coast, Senegal, and Ethiopia, which were ranked as the top three nations with high living costs on the continent.
Further investigation found that The Economist Intelligence Unit’s (EIU) Worldwide Cost of Living 2023 ranked Lagos as one of the cheapest cities to live in with an index of 35, compared to New York’s 100 index.
CONTEXT
The cost of living isn’t a reflection of a country’s standard of living. While standard of living refers to the material well being of the average person in a given population and is typically measured using gross domestic product (GDP) per capita; cost of living is the amount of money needed to cover basic expenses such as housing, food, taxes, and healthcare in a certain place and time period.
According to the 2020 Nigerian Living Standards Survey report published by the National Bureau of Statistics, 40.1 percent of Nigerians live in poverty. Also, the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics 2022 Multidimensional Poverty Index survey revealed that 63 percent of persons living within Nigeria (133 million people) are multidimensionally poor.
Furthermore, a market survey conducted by N-VA highlights significant increase in the market prices of essential commodities. Mrs. Olajumoke Abdulfatai, a trader in Olodo market in Ibadan metropolis, noted that a bag of rice has surged to seventy-five thousand naira, from sixty thousand naira in last year while a congo of rice, previously sold at 1,200 naira in December has increased to 2,500 naira, depending on the location.
Mrs. Abdulfatai, who also sells garri, stated that there has been an increase in the price of garri, with a congo now selling for 1,000 naira from 600-700 naira.
Another trader in Gbagi market Ibadan, Mrs. Tayo Olabode, who sells fish in the same market expressed her challenge in the face of rising prices, as it has reduced her initial purchase of five cartoons of fish to two due to affordability concerns. A mackerel fish now sells for 2,500 naira as against its previous price of 1,500 naira.
CONCLUSION
The claim that Nigeria has the lowest cost of living in Africa is TRUE based on official rankings, however it does not reflect the lived realities of the standard of living in the country.
