Amid a soaring cost-of-living crisis, reports are emerging of Nigerian Public Servants moonlighting in menial jobs in order to meet basic needs.
News outlets highlighted the story of Abdul Hadi Bako, a teacher at a public primary school in Kano who said his monthly pay of N33,800 ($A118.24) was not enough to put food on the table for his family of seven.
When school closes, Bako (45) works as a delivery rider, taking his tricycle around local neighbourhoods, to augment his salary.
“Prices of food items keep increasing every time and my salary is no longer enough to stock foodstuffs at home for a month,” Mr Bako said.
He is not alone. Security guard, Olamilekan Shorunke takes home N35,000 ($A122.43) but says this is not enough to support his mother and two siblings.
He does a catering service at parties to augment his salary.
“I am still living with my mum because I don’t have the means to buy the basic things to furnish a rented apartment,” Mr Shorunke said.
Nigeria’s Consumer Price Index (CPI), which measures the average change over time in the prices of goods and services consumed by people on a daily basis, hit 20.77 per cent in September, up from 20.52 per cent in August.
The current inflation rates are the highest since 2005, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
The NBS attributed the increase to a rise in prices of bread and cereals, potatoes, yam and other tubers, fish, meat, oil and fat, which Mr Bako, Mr Shorunke and other low-income Nigerians consume daily.
Abuja, 9 November 2022
