{"id":42017,"date":"2026-08-10T10:45:38","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T08:45:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=42017"},"modified":"2026-08-10T10:45:38","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T08:45:38","slug":"nigerians-cost-of-living-pain-deepens-as-election-looms","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/nigerians-cost-of-living-pain-deepens-as-election-looms\/","title":{"rendered":"Nigerians&#8217; cost of living pain deepens as election looms"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Grace Adama puts her earrings on in her two-room flat before grabbing her handbag and leaving for work in Abuja, Nigeria&#8217;s capital.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The health Non-Governmental Organisation worker&#8217;s $99 monthly salary is \u200bnearly double the country&#8217;s minimum wage, but she said life keeps getting tougher as her salary fails to keep pace with rocketing costs.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;If I&#8217;m paid today, my salary \u200cstays with me just for one week,&#8221; she told\u00a0<em><span class=\"x_spanWithBackgroundColor\">Reuters<\/span><\/em>. &#8220;If you see the cost of living, house, electricity, everything has gone up.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Living standards for millions in Africa&#8217;s largest oil exporter have crumbled in the past three years as the government of President Bola Tinubu pushed through painful reforms, including fuel subsidy removals, N<span class=\"x_spanWithBackgroundColor\">aira<\/span>\u00a0devaluation and electricity subsidy cuts.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The government and investors say the reforms were essential to pull the country back from the edge of fiscal crisis and would pay off in \u200bthe long run.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>But now, it costs Nigerians more than double to make the staple jollof rice than it did when Tinubu took office, according to an index by Lagos-based Market Intelligence and Strategic Consulting Firm \u200bwhich tracks the prices of ingredients which go into making the dish.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Petrol prices are six times higher following the scrapping of the subsidy and \u2060as the N<span class=\"x_spanWithBackgroundColor\">aira<\/span>\u00a0weakened and global oil prices surged.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The World Bank estimates just over half of Nigeria&#8217;s population were in poverty last year, up from roughly 42% in 2022.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":42020,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[44],"class_list":["post-42017","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":"","news_description":"Nigerians' cost of living ","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/42017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/42017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42022,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/42017\/revisions\/42022"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=42017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}