Nigeria’s Widening Inequality Gulf, a Pot of Jollof, and other Depressing Ingredients
There is a widening gulf between the affluent and the poor in Nigeria’s society, and each day, this dangerous chasm deepens. In the outgoing week, nothing captures this disturbing gulf like two seemingly unrelated yet inter-connected developments.
Earlier in the week, the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) announced that it has pegged the cost of the expression of interest and nomination forms for presidential aspirants at N100 million. The party’s forms for governorship aspirants cost N50 million; Senate, N20 million; House of Representatives, N10 million and State Houses of Assembly, N2 million.
APCs may be the most expensive, but other political parties' forms are just as exorbitant. PDPs presidential nomination and expression of interest forms cost N40 million, for governorship the cost is N21 million per candidate. Aspirants to parliamentary positions, will pay N3.5 million for the Senate, and N2.5 million for the House of Representatives. State House of Assembly forms cost N600, 000.
For APGA, its presidential aspirants will pay a total of N25 million, governorship aspirants will pay N15 million. For the Senate, House of Representatives, and the State House of Assembly, forms would be sold for a total of N10 million, N7million, and N2.5 million respectively.
Few days after the APCs nomination “product launch”, a new report by data analytics platform, SB Morgen, said that the average cost of making a pot of Jollof rice for a family of five in Nigeria rose from N8,007 in the third quarter of 2021 to N8,595 at the end of the first quarter of 2022.
When dissected beyond the surface meanings, even if unrelated, the two developments could help situate the gulf in Nigerian society and its dangerous implications.
Costly Elections, Poor Citizens
The APC announcement jolted many Nigerians to another realm of reality, drawing outright condemnations from different quarters. The announcement notwithstanding, Nigeria’s electoral process has always been scandalously monetized.
Earlier in the year, London-based Financial Times beamed its searchlight on the cost of Nigeria’s presidential election, putting the estimate at around $2 billion, over one trillion in Nigeria’s local currency.
In the United States, it is roughly estimated that the cost of a frontline presidential campaign sits somewhere between $500 million and $1 billion. With an exchange rate of, say, N600 – $1, it costs anything from N300bn to N600bn to become the president of the United States.
According to the website of the US Federal Election Commission, the spending limit for 2020 for publicly-funded general election presidential candidates is $103,701,600. However, the limits are more on donors - candidates cannot raise more than $2800 per election from each donor, according to Fortune.
The crux of the matter, however, is that Nigeria is way too poor to expend such ridiculous amounts on a 4-year election ritual.
To put it in proper perspective, the United States’ economy that is more robust and can accommodate such profligacy does not even encourage that, yet a country with more poor people expends so much on electioneering.
For instance, the US Misery Index is currently at 12.14 index points, up from 11.67 last month and up from 8.620 about a year ago. This is a change of 4.04% from last month and 40.87% from a year ago. It’s coming on the back of an unemployment rate of 3.6% and inflation rate of 8.54%, which American commentators have described as “scandalous”.
On the other hand, in 2021, Nigerians were worse off than they were in 2020 as the country was ranked the world's 11th most miserable country according to the Misery Index. The nation’s performance on the index, an indicator used in determining how economically well off the citizens of a country are, jumped to a scandalously high 62.2 index point. The conditions, based on data from the misery index, were exacerbated by high unemployment rate of 33.3% (Q4 2020) which neutralises the meagre GDP growth rate, a high inflation rate, and prime lending rate of over 11%.
The situation has worsened since the last index was announced.
Political Parties and Politics of Moneybags
Despite the poverty and misery in the land, it’s no surprise that the power-hungry elites are willing to pay for the costly presidential expression of interest form without fuss. In fact, Bola Tinubu, a leading aspirant in the APC, reportedly had the form paid for by an ally, barely 24 hours after the announcement.
The decision of the APC to peg its form at N100m may have predictably been met with criticisms among Nigerians, but it is probably the only unpretentious truth the party has told ordinary Nigerians since it assumed power.
PDP had touted inclusion for reducing the cost of its presidential nomination form for the 2019 elections, it was sold at 12 million naira. But, clearly that strategy is no longer of concern to them with the 233% increase on the cost of nomination forms for 2023.
If any poverty-stricken Nigerians nursed any delusion that these parties belonged to him/her, and he could realise his/her political aspiration through them, a quick check of one’s account balance may have cleared all doubts with the price points.
For instance, it will take the average Nigerian civil servant on N33,000 minimum wage over 3,000 months to save for the APC nomination form. In other words, it will take over 125 years for a well-meaning civil servant to put money together to buy the presidential form of the ruling party.
It’s therefore no surprise that a presidential aspirant, Adamu Garba, expressed shock over the cost of expression of interest and nomination forms for aspirants. Even Chris Ngige, a serving minister, reportedly said that he budgeted half the amount (N50m) for the nomination.
Interestingly, the amount is far higher than the N27.5 million peg the party put on its form in 2014 when then candidate Muhammadu Buhari was seeking the ticket of the newly formed opposition party. Buhari, who campaigned on the back of frugality and austerity, lamented that the N27.5 million was high, and that it took the understanding of his bankers in Kaduna and Abuja to raise the money. Surprisingly, the same Buhari chaired the meeting of the party where it announced the N100mn price, unperturbed by the insensitivity of such a declaration.
To put it in appropriate context, with about N14,058,820.00 as annual remuneration, according to data from the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission, it will take even the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria more than seven years to purchase the APC presidential form with savings from his basic salaries. It will take the Vice President and state governors longer, longer years.
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in its “2019 Poverty and Inequality in Nigeria” report, highlighted that 40 percent of the Nigerian population, or almost 83 million people, live below the country's poverty line of 137,430 naira ($381.75) per year. Disaggregating this data further unveils how poverty has burrowed into the space where most Nigerians domicile – the rural area. It is therefore concerning that in such a deeply poor nation, the inequality in political participation is being deepened with such classist alienation of the poor from politics.
What the APC, alongside their party cronies with other names have done is to show to Nigerians in clearer, unambiguous terms the gulf between the rich and the poor, the affluent and the needy, the political elites and the common man, the “big man” and the ordinary Nigerian.
The validity of political aspiration, therefore, is a function of where a Nigerian belongs on both sides of the socio-economic divides. Inequality!
Cooking a Pot of Luxury
In a deeply unequal country where poverty lies side-by-side with stupendous wealth, the poor sink deeper into misery.
In its ‘Jollof Index Q4 2021 & Q1 2022’, SBM Intelligence noted that the 7.3 percent increase in the cost of preparing a pot of jollof was recorded against the backdrop of rise in diesel prices, petrol scarcity, and heightened insecurity across the nation which drove food prices to a record high in the first quarter of 2022.
Of course, in its last Inflation Report, the National Bureau of Statistics reported that the inflation rate rose to 15.70% in March as fuel scarcity impacted prices.
With the cost of a pot of jollof reaching N8,595—a whopping 47.75% of the N18,000 minimum wage and 26.04% of the largely unpaid N33,000—it is becoming clearer that the so-called Nigerian staple food (Jollof rice) is being taken off the menu.
That way, perhaps the only food staple that unites the poor and the rich in Nigeria has also been wiped off, deepening an already dangerous degree of inequality. Depressing.
It’s therefore safe to conclude that the average Nigerian may have lost the ‘luxury’ of enjoying his favourite jollof in his home. Both Jollof and political participation are now fevered dreams in a poor man’s uneasy sleep .
But in any case, he may still be lucky to have a taste of the delicacy at political rallies - where politicians who bought their forms with N100 million regale people with tales of how they would help bridge the inequality gap.