■ Traders bemoan season of very low sales
By Bolatito Adebayo
With gale force, the recession in the country has practically blown away the fun and joy of the 2016 yuletide. Before now, Christmas had always been a time for feasting, giving, receiving and merry making. It was a time for family reunions, shopping and holidays. In a nutshell, it was a memorable season.
But now the times are hard and this year, Nigerians have witnessed a lot more economic difficulties than ever before.
Companies have had to retrench staff even as many have simply closed shop. The dreams of many people were not realized. Even the usual ambience of the Christmas season is not being felt, as the recession bites harder each passing day with prices of basic goods continuing to rise. Many low-income earners are bearing the brunt of the recession. Expectedly, their meagre salaries are squeezed even more by the inflationary trend, which has further put the prices of several items out of their reach. Asked to share her plans for the Christmas and New Year, Remi Folahan, a banker, said: “Christmas this year will be low key because of the economic realities. Where I work presently, my salary has been slashed; so this Christmas can’t be the same. No more waste, no travelling and in fact no outings for my kids too. We are all going to stay at home and eat our rice and chicken. January will soon be here and there will be school fees to pay, and since there is no spare money now, there won’t be frivolous spending.”
On her part, Ngozi Okafor, a trader, said she would not travel home like she used to do because of the hike in the fares.
“I have never witnessed this kind of Christmas in my entire life, you need to take a look around; there are no hampers or gifts. I am not even travelling because if I do, the expenses will be too much for me to bear. So it is better I send money home to buy a bag of rice, which is now a luxury,” Okafor said.
Last year, thousands of trailer loads of rice were transported across the country, but this year, it has not been so.
An Igbo trader, Chidi, who sells rice at Odo Eran market after Barracks, Iyana Iba, along the Lagos Badagry Express, told Sunday Sun reporter: “Madam, a bag of rice now costs about N20,000 or more. We are having very low sales. This time last year, you needed to have seen my shop; you could hardly stand in here. But now it is not so, because I can’t afford to buy as much as I would like.”
Similarly, Oyinye Charles, another trader, who sells groundnut oil, also lamented: “I don’t know how this Christmas will be like, but I am praying to God that things will improve before Christmas. The sale of groundnut oil is low, you can see now that people are not coming here to buy, because of the high price. They prefer the local ones they put in kegs. The price of three litres of groundnut oil now is N2400 and it can increase before Christmas.”
At the popular Balogun market on Lagos Island, the lamentation about poor sales is at the same decibel as in the markets on the mainland.
Nike Adewunmi, who sells Christmas decorations, gave an insight to the situation: “Many of the people we bought Christmas decorations from last year didn’t import this year. So, we are only selling the things we didn’t sell last year. They have been complaining about the exchange rate of the naira to the United States dollar, which they say is too high and a big discouragement.
Adewunmi opined: “You see, there is a place in Lagos that is well known for Christmas decoration only. In the past, that place was usually very busy because of the crowd and the high level of sales, but go there today, you will see the place is a shadow of itself.”
Kafilat, a sales girl in one the fabric shops expressed frustration over the situation: “There are no sales at all, people are just moving up and down and they are not buying anything. Some will peep into your shop and when they ask for the prices and we tell them, they just turn and walk away because the price is high; they don’t try to haggle a little.”
“We don’t like this kind of change that is happening in the country. We don’t like it at all. Sometimes we just sit here all day, and by the end of the day when we want to do the account we will realize that what we made for the whole day only amounted to what we used to make in just hours in the past,” Sowunmi, a fabrics trader at Idumota lamented.
…As commuters, transporters also lament
By Ayo Alonge
Usually at Yuletide period, transport fares witness a spike in response to the high demand for seats on inter-state buses by people eager to travel to their states to participate in end-of-the-year festivities and interact with their kith and kin.
This year, the rise in fares, as Sunday Sun reporter found out, has been driven by the storm of recession buffeting the country.
Notwithstanding the biting inflationary pressure on fares, the urge to travel has not incapacitated many people from the Southeast residing in Lagos.
Sunday Sun reporter who visited Mazamaza, a major hub of the notable transport companies that run daily services on the Lagos-Southeast route, found out that the area was thronged by travelers who had lots of luggage comprising bags of rice, suitcases and several other items, although they complained about the high fares.
However, an operative of one of the transport companies, John Obidiebube, justified the increase in fares.
“A litre of diesel is now above N205. This time last year, it was about N120. I heard it would be N225 soon. The increase in fuel price, is aside the high cost of maintaining the buses. If you put all the costs together, a ticket should even be above N10,000. There would surely be an increment in fares when the rush fully starts. By this time last year, we were shuttling to the east from Lagos for just N3,500 but it is N4,500 now. There is bound to be another increase as the demand for seats increases. We have passengers going to Aba, Onitsha, Owerri, Port Harcourt, Abuja, and the rest,” he said.
Despite the risks involved in traveling at nights, Obidiebube said more people travel at night. “I think more people prefer traveling at night due to the bad roads. When they travel at night, they arrive on time. The recession is affecting every business, but we still get more passengers and there would be more when school activities close for the year. You know people must always travel to the villages to see their relations during Christmas. In the area of security while on the highway, the Chairman of the Association of Luxury Bus Owners of Nigeria (ALBON) has written to the Inspector General of Police to deploy heavy security personnel along the highways,” he said.
Some passengers also commented on the effect of the recession on their annual trip to the village for the Yuletide. One of them, Martins, said: “I don’t think people will travel this year as much as they did last year. Anyway, it is expected because we know things are very hard now. We don’t need to focus on last year because that is gone already. Let us see how we can survive this year and hope things get better by next year.”
At the terminal of God Is Good Motors Limited in Jibowu, Lagos, a much lower number of people were seen buying tickets. Perhaps to boost sales, the company offered a 50 per cent discount for children traveling with their parents or guardians.
Similarly, passengers were seen at the Jibowu terminal of Chisco Transport Nigeria Limited. The company is also running promotion and has offered a brand new car to be won as the star prize of the raffle draw due to hold at the end of the Yuletide.
Cornered for comments, the General Manager (Buses) of Okeyson Motors Limited, Emeka Udeji, commented on safety measures taken by the transport company to protect its passengers.
He said: “A lot of things have been put in place to ensure safety of passengers during this period. We have speed limiters in all our vehicles and our drivers don’t take alcohol. We have installed monitoring devices in the vehicles so that we can monitor them as they go. Some people have complained that they cannot travel due to the high cost of fuel, although we have not adjusted the fare,” he said.
Sunday Sun gathered that fares range from N4,000 to N6,000, to any major town in the eastern part of the country. For passengers traveling to Abuja or Port Harcourt, fare ranges from N5,000 to N7,000.