Life Challenges, No. 16: Unbearable Cost Of Living
Toyin Falola
When the Cooking Pot Begins to Cry
When the cooking pot begins to cry,
even the firewood knows
that the house is in trouble.
Ask the mother
who wakes before the cock
has cleared its throat.
Ask her.
She knows the mathematics of hunger.
She ties yesterday’s hope
inside the corner of her wrapper
and walks toward the market,
basket on her head,
prayer beneath her tongue.
But the market has become
a forest of frightening numbers.
Yesterday,
a measure of Garri was this much.
Today,
the trader names another price.
Tomorrow?
Do not ask tomorrow.
Tomorrow itself
is afraid of the market.
Rice now walks like a chief.
Beans have acquired titles.
Yam sits upon a stool
and refuses to greet people experiencing poverty.
Palm oil shines in its bottle
like the blood of red gold.
Even pepper—
ordinary pepper! —
now burns the pocket
before it burns the tongue.
The woman asks,
“My sister, why?”
The trader shakes her head.
“Do not blame me.
I bought suffering wholesale;
I am only selling it retail.”
And both women laugh.
That African laughter.
The laughter that carries tears
on its back.
The laughter of people
who have looked at hardship
and said:
You again?
At the roadside,
the mini bus conductor shouts
Another fare.
The passenger complains.
The conductor complains.
The driver complains.
The petrol station complains.
Even the road,
broken into a hundred potholes,
seems to complain.
Everybody is angry.
Nobody knows
whom to fight.
For when hunger enters the village,
it does not knock
on only one door.
School fees rise.
House rent rises.
Transport rises.
Medicine rises.
Electricity rises.
Food rises.
Everything has learned
how to climb
except the salary.
The salary sits beneath the iroko tree,
old and tired,
watching prices
climb toward heaven.
At home,
the cooking pot grows smaller.
Once, meat swam inside the soup.
Now the children search for it
like archaeologists
looking for a lost civilization.
Father says,
“Give mine to the children.”
Mother says,
“I ate earlier.”
But everyone knows
she is lying.
There are lies
that are another name for love.
The eldest child
has learned not to ask
for a second helping.
The youngest still asks.
Soon,
he too will learn.
This is how poverty teaches manners.
Not with proverbs.
Not with the cane.
With an empty plate.
At night,
darkness enters without greeting.
The electricity disappears.
The generator waits silently
because fuel has become
a visitor too expensive to entertain.
The fan stops.
The refrigerator becomes
an ordinary cupboard.
Mosquitoes begin their festival.
Children turn upon their mats,
sweating beneath the African night,
while somewhere beyond the walls
a politician’s convoy
cuts through the darkness—
one car,
two cars,
ten cars,
sirens screaming:
Make way!
Make way!
Make way!
But who will make way
for the hungry?
Who will sound a siren
for the widow?
Who will clear the road
for the pensioner
counting coins
before the pharmacist?
Who will escort
the unemployed graduate
carrying certificates
from one closed door
to another?
His mother sold goats
to educate him.
His father sold land.
His village contributed prayers.
Now his degree sleeps
inside a brown envelope
while he walks beneath the sun
looking for work.
The ancestors must be wondering:
Is this the future
for which we buried
our children’s umbilical cords
in this soil?
Listen.
The talking drum is speaking.
Gbedu! Gbedu!
It says:
A goat does not become thin
in one afternoon.
A roof does not collapse
because of one rainfall.
A river does not forget its path
without something blocking the way.
So do not tell us
that hunger simply arrived.
Hunger has a history.
Poverty has ancestors.
Bad roads have signatures.
Empty hospitals have architects.
Broken schools have witnesses.
And the high price of food
has travelled through
farms without irrigation,
roads without repair,
currencies losing strength,
wars and distant markets,
taxes and debts,
poor decisions,
greed,
and governments promising rain
while holding umbrellas
only over themselves.
Still,
Africa wakes.
Ah, Africa wakes!
Before sunrise,
the farmer enters the field.
The market woman arranges
tomatoes into pyramids of hope.
The mechanic opens his workshop.
The teacher writes
upon the blackboard.
The tailor bends
over the sewing machine.
The hawker enters traffic
with a tray upon her head.
The fisherman pushes his canoe
into the morning water.
The student opens a book
beneath uncertain light.
The mother blows upon the charcoal.
The pot returns to the fire.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Do not call this poverty
our culture.
Do not make a monument
to our suffering.
Do not praise Africans
for surviving conditions
they should never have been forced
to survive.
There is nothing beautiful
about a mother
choosing which child
receives the last egg.
Nothing heroic
about a pensioner
cutting one tablet into four.
Nothing traditional
about graduates without work.
Nothing ancestral
about hunger.
Our ancestors prayed
for abundance.
They called upon the rain.
They planted yam.
They stored grain.
They raised children
so that tomorrow
might be larger than yesterday.
And so,
when the harmattan wind
carries our voices
across the continent,
let it carry this message:
Enough.
Let the talking drum announce it.
Enough.
Let the market women repeat it.
Enough.
Let the farmers hear it
across the savannah.
Let fishermen hear it
along the Niger,
the Congo,
the Nile,
the Limpopo,
the Zambezi.
Let it cross the Sahel.
Let it climb Kilimanjaro.
Let it enter the forests
and cross the Kalahari.
Let it reach every compound
where a cooking pot
sits silently upon three stones.
For Africa is not poor
in imagination.
Africa is not poor
in hands.
Africa is not poor
in land,
sun,
rivers,
youth,
memory,
music,
or dreams.
Our tragedy is that
amid abundance,
too many plates
remain empty.
But listen—
the pot is still upon the fire.
And where there is fire,
something may yet be cooked.
Where there is seed,
something may yet grow.
Where there is a drum,
someone may yet dance.
Where there is memory,
a people may yet remember
that suffering is not destiny.
So, Mother,
keep the pot.
But one day,
may you fill it
without calculating.
May the children eat
without counting.
May the farmer harvest
without fear.
May the worker return home
with enough.
May the old receive medicine
without choosing between
healing and hunger.
And when that morning comes,
may the cooking pot
no longer cry.
May it sing.
May it sing
with yam and rice,
with millet and maize,
with cassava and beans,
with soup thick enough
for every hand
that reaches toward it.
And beneath the iroko tree,
may the elders say:
At last.
The children of Africa
have learned a new proverb:
A continent that can feed the world
must first feed its own
The cost of living has always been discussed from a collective perspective as a measure of a country's economic performance. Percentile or head-per-1000 quantification, and country-to-country comparisons obscure personal experience of the cost of living in each country. Hence, when the global description of a nation's cost of living seems good, you often forget the small percentage who still suffer the debacles of cost of living. The general assessment of the cost of living is based on broad experience and leaves no room for individual differences. Even in the most advanced city in the world, some people still find it hard to afford the cost of living, either due to specific circumstances or poverty.
States like California, Hawaii, and Massachusetts, and cities like New York, San Francisco, and Honolulu in the United States; London, Winchester, Oxford, Cambridge, and Edinburgh in the United Kingdom; Cape Town, Stellenbosch, Johannesburg, Pretoria, and Hermanus in South Africa; Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangzhou in China. These are some of the most expensive places to live. Zurich, New York, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Geneva also top the charts globally. These cities are usually categorized as doing well, with a good standard of living and business opportunities. Still, they weigh on some people, as the cost of living makes it hard to rise beyond their situation. The challenge is forgetting the cost of living when you focus on the standard of living. While Nigeria and other countries with low standards of living often dominate this kind of conversation, these life challenges matter even beyond those areas. It is relevant to those in the big cities, whose turmoil is buried and unnoticed amid the cascades of city beauty.
It could be easy to wrestle with many life challenges in the long run, but it is quite difficult to battle the cost of living as an individual. This is because it is a perpetual battle and a situational reality, which means your earning power may not carry you above it. You see, earning a decent salary of about 500,000 Naira in Lagos, Nigeria, could seem like a beacon of convenience, especially for a small family just starting. The salary is well above the average salary in Lagos, which, according to a BusinessDay article based on a survey of the private and public sectors on August 25, 2025, is 175,000 Naira. If you are earning this little, you might be the one who needs a miracle most to break through in Lagos. You certainly will need vigils in church.
500,000 Naira is also the average salary of Nigerian professors at the height of their academic careers. It is certainly more than 80 percent of any civil servant's salary in Lagos. It is just about 375.45 USD; it is even more ridiculous when you consider all other considerations in Nigeria, and it is supposedly a convenient salary level. It may seem like a better salary, but it cannot keep you out of poverty.
When you consider the cost of transportation in a metro city like Lagos, as well as education, basic and social expenses, housing, power supply, food, and other expenses, you will start to realize that our benchmark salary of 500,000 Naira is not enough to live a truly comfortable life. As a young family, you will probably spend 6,000 Naira on transportation every day, about 10,000 Naira on feeding, and save about 200,000 Naira for housing. You will realize that the said amount is insufficient to meet these needs. As a result, you believe you earn enough, and the cycle continues. You will seldom leave where you are, and when things get more expensive, with a proportional reflection on your monthly income, it becomes more stringent. No savings, no comfort money, and you gradually start to lose comfort. Mere convenience becomes a luxury as you must go for the cheapest options your money can buy. The circle continues.
For those earning below that sum, it is hell in town. You end up living in the most remote part of Lagos and “travel” to work every day, paying a ridiculous sum for transport. If you know Lagos, you know the government-assisted transport system is not very efficient for the population, so regular Danfo and other means of transportation become the recourse. I have seen people who live in places as far as Ikorodu, Agbado, and Ota in Ogun State, and work on the Island in Lagos every day. They leave home as early as 4 a.m. and get home as late as 11 pm on a good day. They barely have time to rest. So, when you see all the passengers sleeping in a car early in the morning on their way to work, you should ask where the car is coming from and when it set out.
Well, not everything is in Lagos. Although the cost of living is seemingly low in remote cities in northern Nigeria, it remains too high for many residents. They must grow their own food, cannot afford good clothing, and battle with poverty.
You do not need to be jobless or earn ridiculously low in Nigeria before you can regard yourself as poor. You do not even need to be homeless or walk around naked. The system puts you in limbo; you keep spinning around from paycheck to paycheck, picking up depression, aggression, and disappointment along the way. You get angry at every opportunity; you see your landlord drive you out and trek part of the way to reduce transportation costs. You see yourself rationing food, not because you want to keep fit, but because you became Minister of Resource Management overnight.
If you have a family, you probably will not have a choice in which school your children attend. You pick the most affordable one your salary can cover, and you still must pay about 3 installments per term. Your children are sent home every Monday to remind you of the unpaid school fees. Loan apps chase you because you service a loan with your salary and collect another. By the 3rd day after salary, you already have nothing. The circle continues, and it seems unending. It is pitiful but consistent.
As a woman, you need to save for months before you can afford the hair you'll wear for the next few months. You might have to buy some cheap wigs, and maybe one good one for special occasions. You already have eyes for second-hand everything, even your underwear. This breeds desperation, and as such, almost any job that comes your way is one you'll take, even if your reputation is at stake.
As a civil servant battling the rolling wheel of the cost of living, you cannot help but get bribes. Without it, you are finished. When someone comes to your office for an inquiry or another engagement, you look forward to the little “appreciation” they can give. When you become so desperate, or so used to collecting that money, it becomes a precondition for carrying out your duty. I am not justifying corruption, but I think I understand why bribery and corrupt practices are so rampant among Nigerian civil servants: they are not paid enough.
One of the most corrupt government agencies in Nigeria is the Nigeria Police. Many of the officials are gun-carrying beggars who would either waste your time or find some fault if you do not give them some money. They patrol highways and set up roadblocks. They don't care what you carry; you must drop something. With the average salary of a police officer in Nigeria around 100,000 Naira, this situation will not be a surprise.
This life challenge is not ordinary; it is the foundation for many others, the root cause of some of your problems. I would have said, "This too shall pass," but there is no assurance it will pass on its own. I am not a prophet of doom, but statistics support that the cost of living does not really come down. It doesn't matter whether you are in a city; it will affect you. Even the rich still must suffer a bit, not because they cannot afford it, but because money that could have been used for something else is directed toward just one thing.
Now that inflation and global crises like the war in Gaza are affecting petrol prices, which ripple through the cost of everything, the projection may not allow me to offer you any positive news about change soon. I don't determine the country’s economy or global situations.
However, I know that if you do nothing, this wheel will not break. Where necessary, leave expensive cities. If you earn 250,000 Naira in Akure, or 200,000 in Kano, it could be way better than earning 500,000 Naira in Lagos. Overhead costs in those areas are lower, so you can live healthily and affordably. You don't need to live in busy cities; you need to live well.
I must say that the economy does not favor a single stream of income; you must double or triple it. If you are a civil servant, start a small business your colleagues can buy from. Sell thrift office wear, consumables, stationery, and anything to cover small expenses.
One thing is sure: the high cost of living will not go away; you must adjust. It is also important not to fall for the “big man” feeling when you think you earn a lot. Create a monthly financial plan that covers all anticipated and unexpected expenses. Save, and when you have a lump sum of income, invest. Open small businesses. They may fail, but they can help. Do not carry unnecessary financial burdens. Upskill and search for better-paying jobs. Gain internationally relevant and transferable skills that can give you a competitive edge. To fight poverty, you need to up your game. That is the advice I can give you.
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