Food items, soup pot theft on the rise as recession bites Nigerians

In various ways, the negatives from the recession that is presently ravaging the Nigerian economy is manifesting itself not only in the national treasury,

which we are told, is drying up, but also in families and households where hunger is no longer a mere visitor but a stubborn resident.

According to a  Businessday report, though the situation may be milder in the urban centres where those who are lucky to have their jobs or businesses still going for them can still maintain bare existence, the story in rural communities where it is estimated that 70 percent of the country’s 170 million population resides is simply pathetic.

BusinessDay reports at the weekend that in those communities, hunger is the metaphor and the unmistakable face of recession and has pushed many people to the limits. “Many people are now stealing food items in the market,” Jerome Itodo reveals, who spoke in a telephone interview from a rural community in Enugu.

Itodo explains that the incident is on the increase such that on each native market day (Eke Day), which comes up every four days, more than five cases of food item theft are recorded, “but the natives handle this with caution and understanding; none of those so far caught has been manhandled because they confess to stealing for reasons of hunger.”

The city centres have their own challenge. Apart from the rising cases of pilfering, soup pots are now at risk. “On two occasions, my neighbour has had his soup pot emptied by an unknown ‘thief’ within our compound,” Johnson Onyebuchi says, who lives in one of the Lagos slum areas.

According to Onyebuchi, people living in multi-family buildings made up of one-room or a room and parlour apartments, popularly called face-me-I-face-you in Lagos, now keep watchful eyes on soup pots, whether it is still cooking or being warmed because “not everybody in the kitchen is there to cook.”

From a regional economic powerhouse awash with petro-dollar, Nigeria has suddenly become a poor country, barely two years after its GDP size was weighted $510 billion and the largest in Africa.

The economy slipped into recession after the GDP growth rate declined two consecutive quarters – 0.36 percent in the first quarter of 2016, which experts say is the country’s lowest GDP growth in 25 years.

The growth decline was worse in the second quarter of the year at a little above -2 percent, but this was to be expected given the prevailing macro-economic environment in the country. Productive activities have slowed; productive capacity for most industries is now below average; many people have been thrown out of job; salaries for some people still at work have been cut, delayed or not paid at all.

“When people are stealing food items or soup pots, it is understandable and I dare say we are coming to worse case scenarios,” says a banker who did not want his name mentioned. The level of non-performing loans in the banks’ books, the poverty level even among the so-called high net worth individuals, he notes, give a clear picture of how deep the economy has sunk.

The economy is really in dire straits, affirms Femi Akintunde, CEO, AMFacilities Limited, stressing that non-performing loans are no longer peculiar to the banking sector. It is also in the facilities management industry where operators are now owed several months for services already provided.

“The people who work in banks, oil and gas or manufacturing industries are those from the households we are talking about and many of them have been laid off; many of those still at work are not paid regularly because their companies are also part of the challenged economy,” he says, warning that unless something urgent is done to halt this drift in the economy, more households may fall into worse living conditions.

Experts advise that the government should get down to work and stop the blame game, which has, unwittingly, become an act of governance for those in government. While President Buhari is blaming the recession on past administrations in the country, Vice President Osinbajo is saying pipeline vandals are responsible.