- Churches, traders grapple with falling income
By Henry Oduah
Reporter
Incomes are shrinking. Family meals decrease every day. Food prices shoot upwards. Workers are sacked out of public knowledge.
The consequence: More people are becoming conservative in their spending.
Even in churches, congregants are reducing the offering they drop in the tithe box. Sermons from the pulpit are tilting towards ‘giving with faith’ as against those on affluence which used to be the norm.
Some pastors are working hard to convince congregants that ‘the measure you give is the measure you receive.’
When cash becomes scarce
Usually, when cash becomes scarce in any economy, basic exigencies are considered first before pleasure.
Pay TV, holidaying and such pleasures are the worst hit. Some even said they now think through the amount they pay as tithe, disregarding the Biblical injunction to pay 10 per cent of one’s income.
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) left over 170 million Nigerians gasping for breath on the last day of August when it confirmed that the nation was in a recession.
The report came after there were already talks of a possible and inevitable dip into recession in the economic space.
In the September report of the NBS, inflation rose to 17.9 per cent, an unsettling high from 17.6 per cent in August.
“During the month, the highest increases were seen in clothing materials, other articles of clothing and clothing accessories, garments, shoes and other footwear, books and stationeries, jewellery, clocks and watches, and motorcycles,” the report said.
Food sub-index rose 16.6 per cent year-on-year, a 0.19 percentage point jump compared with 16.4 per cent in August.
The NBS also said the prices of electricity, liquid fuel (kerosene), solid fuels, and lubricants for personal transport equipment groups were among those that spiralled upwards in September.
On October 14, the NBS announced the inflation rate for October to be 18.3 per cent, which that has further devastated Nigerians.
On the streets, there is barely any person who is not aware of the economic challenges.
One woman who lives in Lagos told TheNiche even her three little children’s blushes are not spared as gifts and spare money given to them have dropped.
Discussion with some families showed that folks are tightening loose ends of their budget to free money up for more pressing needs.
Downside
Families are shunning ostentatious lifestyles. ‘Aso-ebi’ is becoming less popular among the Yoruba. More people give excuses to avoid occasions that may take a lot of naira from their pockets.
Couples fuse traditional wedding with ‘white’ wedding ceremonies on the same day to cut costs.
Many blame the upsurge in kidnappings, armed robbery, and other social vices on the current national economic troubles.
With over 15 million unemployed youths in the country, social commentators fear the situation could get worse. A total 15.2 million youths were unemployed or underemployed in the first quarter of the year, reported by TheCable, an online publication.
The rise in the price of kerosene forces many to drop their kerosene stove for the gas cylinder.
A resident of Agege in Lagos, who identified himself simply as Alfred, said he would switch his stove for the 5kg gas cylinder which costs less than N1,500 to fill up.
“It would last for more than three weeks compared with expensive kerosene,” he stressed.
Rise in transport fares, many fear, would prevent a high number of people from travelling to their home towns for the Christmas holiday, in a year that has brought private school proprietors to their knees.
Schools which used to have a reputation for being merciless sometimes to parents and guardians are becoming considerate.
Some parents even report that instead of the usual increase in tuition fees at the start of the session, fees have been brought down by 5 per cent or more.
Multinational fast-food outfits are also facing their share of the hard times.
TheNiche monitored a number of them one weekend in Lagos and observed that the number of people who visit such places has fallen. But those located in highbrow areas are not as affected as those in the middle class sections.
A sales person in a fast-food outlet in the Ifako area of Lagos said on the condition of anonymity that regular consumers change their diet and buy less.
Restaurant and bar operators are dancing to the same tune as everyone else. Patronage has dropped considerably, they say.
Margaret Attai, a bar operator in the Ogba area of Lagos, said clientele began falling in March.
“Fridays are usually the busiest days. But sales have been bad since March. Now I can easily count the number of people who come to my bar,” she disclosed.
Another bar operator in the vicinity said her customers consume fewer bottles of alcohol, and some come to “drink on credit because of the recession.”
The drop in the consumption of alcohol in local bars suggests that drinkers may be saving up for family needs as income shrinks.
Blessing Uwakwe, a trader in Sango, Ogun State, said daily sales have dropped and traders think of “new ways of attracting the few people who come to the market by reducing their profit.
“Before this problem we are facing now (the recession) I used to make over N20,000 daily but now if I make up to N15,000 then it’s a very good day.”
Out of the box
Cautioned by rising inflation at 17.9 per cent, families have been cutting their budgets since the turn of 2016 and learning to live on less.
People are forced to think out of the box to increase streams of income.
Employees of corporate organisations who once felt secured now engage in other business ventures to earn more money for fear of losing their standard of living if they join the thousands already without jobs.
The NBS put the rate of unemployment at 13.3 per cent in the second quarter of 2016. Youth unemployment is at 24 per cent, the highest in years.
It also disclosed that no fewer than 4.58 million had lost their jobs by the the second quarter of this year.
An employee of Diamond Bank in Lagos, who did not want her name in print, told TheNiche she has invested in several businesses which would yield profit after a period of 30 days or more.
Some of her colleagues are also involved as “we are no longer sure we won’t get fired soon.”
New business outfits have been emerging since the beginning of the year.
The Diamond Bank employee said her business venture requires one to register with the firm and an initial deposit made into a registered account.
Then within 30 to 60 days, the account holder reaps 30 per cent of the initial deposit as soon as a new depositor puts money into the business. And the chain goes on and on.
Church leaders are thinking beyond the traditional on ways to lessen the burden of the recession on their members.
At St Theresa’s Catholic Church, Agege in Lagos, worshippers have been wowed by Joachim Ochibili who recently replaced Innocent Chiamaka as parish priest.
Eunice Umeh, a member of the Confraternity of Christian Mothers (CCM), a mothers’ group in the church, said Ochibili “understands the times and seasons.”
Ochibili is winning hearts by reducing the rent for the church hall for occasions from N5,000 to N1,000 and the price of Sunday bulletin from N100 to N20.
Parish Pastoral Council (PPC) Chairman, Emmanuel Iwenjora, confirmed that the parish has also slashed fees at St Theresa’s Private School, which the church owns.
He said the PPC is “backing [Ochibili’s] decisions which are coming at the time they are needed in the parish.
“Intending couples used to be charged N34,000 now they’re required to pay only N3,000; N1,000 goes to the church while the choir takes N2,000. The choir used to receive N4,000.
“Societies [in the church] too are no longer to pay levies to the PPC. The church now takes care of the PPC. We have even asked societies to encourage their members in these difficult times by cutting their levies.”
Income shrinking
In churches around the country, offerings and tithes lean south.
Temitope Mudele, an usher at a Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) branch in Ifako-Ijaiye, Lagos, said the church’s income has dropped because some members recently lost their jobs.
Since Nigeria’s economic woes became glaring, organisations, notably financial institutions, have been downsizing. Calls to halt further plans to sack yield little fruit as more workers face the big stick.
Unity Bank reportedly fired 215 workers recently. Thousands of others in federal ministries have also been retrenched.
Some Christians see recession as an instrument God uses to draw people to Himself. This perspective is backed by reports of an upsurge in church attendance.
“Some of our members have lost their jobs and it has affected our record for tithes. The positive side of it is that it is making people take God more seriously.
“On a normal Sunday service, we didn’t get as many as 100 persons in the past. But today (Sunday) we recorded 100 attendees.
“Those who are traders among us too have been affected because people are not spending as much as they used to,” Mudele said.
At Dayspring LoveHouse Church in Ikeja, an official who identified herself simply as Sharon said the willingness of members to give cheerfully has reduced.
“The money you could use to buy about 10 items can only buy five items now in some cases. The need for money is increasing and the willingness to give is reducing because humans naturally tend to put their needs first.
“So it has affected church offering,” she explained.
Younger than Nigeria but beating the recession
- Culled from bbc.com
As Africa’s most-populous country turned 56 in October, many Nigerians were not in the mood for celebration – preoccupied as they are with the ongoing recession.
For Nigerian businesses, 2016 has indeed been a challenging year. The oil-dependent nation is presently in an economic downturn, largely because of the drop in oil prices.
As a consequence, the prices of goods and services have gone up and for many businesses profits are thin.
But some fresh, young entrepreneurs are bucking the trend.
“Whatever direction the economy goes, there are always opportunities,” says Obinna Onunkwo, one of the Nigerians who is changing the face of the property scene.
He and his business partner Laide Agboola – who are both under 40 – have just completed the development of a $25 million (£19.2m), 7,700-sq-metre retail centre in Lagos.
Nigeria’s retail sector has seen significant growth over the past five years and savvy investors like Onunkwo tapped in early.
They managed to convince investors that the Maryland Mall in Ikeja was a bankable project.
After five months of pitching to investors last year, they were able to raise funds.
Onunkwo believes the key to their success was that they ensured any loans they took were in the local currency, the naira, and not dollar loans.
A good decision as the naira has weakened significantly over the past year.
People need to rent even in a recession
Sulaiman Balogun, co-founder of ToLet.com.ng – a Nigerian online property search portal – will remember 2016 as the year the cash came in.
He and his business partners – Fikayo Ogundipe, Dapo Eludire and Seyi Ayeni – have raised $1.2 million.
This is quite a feat as banks and financial institutions in Nigeria are not keen to lend to new businesses because of a lack of credit records and insufficient collateral.
Enterprising technology-driven businesses like ToLet have to prove themselves, sometimes with very little capital, in the hope that big time venture capital firms take notice.
After meeting at university, Balogun and his partners started their business in June 2012, when they were in their twenties and at a time when online property search websites were not popular in Nigeria.
The partners raised $400 from their personal savings and with family support embarked on their business journey.
A year after launching their property platform they raised $230,000 in seed capital from online business builder, Spark.ng, and this made a significant contribution to the growth of their business.
However, their big break came in September when they caught the eye of Frontier Digital Ventures, a company passionate about online classifieds businesses, and they secured additional funds.
Two key things have been the secret to their success.
“We anticipated the recession and kept costs low,” says Balogun. “And people still need to look for homes to rent in a recession.”
Go beyond Africa
For Papa Omotayo, a 40-year-old Lagos-based architect, looking to markets outside Nigeria can help entrepreneurs weather an economic slump.
“Make sure your reach goes beyond Africa,” says Omotayo, the founder of AWCA, a multi-award winning ideas development agency.
He has been driven to change the way the African continent is portrayed globally, through art and creativity.
Teaming up with 29-year-old Maki Osakwe, creative director of Maki Oh, a fashion brand worn by the likes of Michelle Obama, Lupita Nyong’o, and Solange Knowles, the two produced a short fashion film entitled Omi.
It bagged the Best New Director award at Milan’s fashion film festival in September.
Omotayo says diversity is the secret to his success – ensuring that Nigeria’s arts and culture scene reaches beyond Africa.
And although he has seen a shift in the spending power of Nigerians this year, his creative business has not slowed down as much as expected, and he is confident that more opportunities will open up for him.
These young entrepreneurs are making headlines – in spite of Nigeria’s recession.
They prove that it is possible to diversify away from oil – and show the enterprising spirit of the country.
