Nigeria’s Ambassador-designate to Mexico, Reno Omokri, has drawn criticism over his claim that an average Nigerian can live comfortably on a daily budget of N3,000.
Josef Onoh, a former South-East spokesman for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Chairman of the Forum of Former Members of the Enugu State House of Assembly, dismissed the claim as unrealistic amid the country’s rising cost of living.
Onoh, in a statement made available to journalists on Monday, acknowledged that N3,000 a day amounts to N90,000 monthly, which is higher than the N70,000 national minimum wage.
However, he argued that comparing the two figures failed to reflect the realities of Nigerian households, where income is often used to cater for several family members.
He said a family of five surviving on N3,000 daily would effectively have just N600 per person, an amount he described as inadequate for proper nutrition, let alone other necessities.
According to him, the cost of food, transportation, healthcare, education, clothing and other essential expenses makes the proposed daily budget untenable for most households.
Onoh also pointed to food prices, citing increases in the cost of staples and other household necessities as evidence that N3,000 could hardly support a family.
He said fresh pepper and tomatoes could sell for about N9,000 and N12,000 respectively per paint bucket, while rice, beans, tubers and other staples had also become more expensive.
Protein sources, including eggs and beef, he added, had equally become increasingly unaffordable for many low- and middle-income families.
The former presidential spokesman further argued that cost-of-living pressures varied according to location, noting that urban residents faced additional expenses that could not easily be avoided.
He said people living in cities such as Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt had to contend with costs associated with electricity, transportation and fuel, among others.
While some rural households could supplement their food supply through subsistence farming, Onoh said such arrangements could not be used to define the economic reality of Nigerians generally.
He also criticised the use of the N70,000 minimum wage as a basis for arguing that N3,000 was sufficient for daily living.
According to him, such an approach risks presenting poverty-level subsistence as an acceptable standard of living instead of confronting the economic difficulties facing households.
Onoh said families that devoted between 60 and 70 per cent of their income to food would have little money remaining for healthcare, education, savings and other basic needs.
He also cautioned against drawing conclusions about the national cost of living from isolated market observations, saying such assessments failed to capture the broader economic pressures experienced by households.
“To label N3,000 as a viable daily survival threshold for the average Nigerian is to mistake bare subsistence for living, masking a deep humanitarian and economic reality behind superficial retail arithmetic,” Onoh said.
He urged Omokri to ensure that his public statements reflected what he described as the “empirical financial pressures” confronting Nigerians.
Onoh further called on government officials and public representatives to make citizens’ welfare a central consideration in their policy positions and public commentary.
He maintained that the well-being of Nigerians should be regarded as a responsibility of government rather than a privilege.