Economy
THE rising cost of living has forced many families in Dutse Alhaji, a community in Bwari Area Council of the Federal Capital Territory, to change their eating habits as they struggle to cope with worsening economic conditions.
Residents who spoke with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) said they had been compelled to rethink their meals to reflect the current harsh economic realities in the country.
They stressed that the conventional three- square-meal routine was no longer sustainable, hence the need to reduce both the quantity and quality of food they consumed.
“Eating the usual three times a day is no longer tenable for me and family in these hard times.
“There is a saying that desperate times call for desperate measures, and that is exactly what we are doing at the moment.
“Some days we eat morning and night (1-0-1), other days only in the afternoon (0-1-0), but eating three times is totally out of the equation,” said John Monday, a father of four children.
Babangida Haliru, a civil servant, said he had limited himself to one meal a day as his salary could no longer support the old order.
According to him, reducing his food intake has enabled him to meet other essential expenses such as transportation, accommodation, and utility bills among others.
“The cost of everything has more than tripled, so if I keep eating three times a day I won’t be able to do other important things,” he said.
For Suleiman Maishanu, a tailor and father of five children, the rising inflation has negatively impacted the quality of food served in his household.
Maishanu stated that protein, once a regular feature in his family meals, had become a luxury.
“Inflation has significantly affected the quality of food that my family members and I eat.
“Before now, there was no meal we prepared without meat inside, but right now I cannot even remember the last time we had meat in our food,” he added.
Magdalene Solomon, a food vendor, noted that there had been a sharp drop in the number of people who bought food served with meat in recent months.
“A lot of my customers no longer ask for food with meat.
“Some even request half a plate of food, and I try to consider them because I understand how hard life has become for everyone right now,” she stated.
Others residents who spoke called for a national minimum wage increase that is reflective of current economic conditions.
They argued that improved workers’ earnings would help cushion the effect of inflation on households.
Some also stressed the need for more support to rural farmers, particularly on areas of security and subsidised fertiliser and other farm inputs to boost their production.
“We have the issue of insecurity and high cost of fertiliser affecting agriculture that need to be addressed to boost agriculture, ” a farmer Faisal Musa said.(NAN)
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Tags: FCT community Rising inflation