– By Lanre Roland

Family of five, husband earns 400,000 monthly, wife earns 300,000 monthly
All post-tax
Sounds good?

A combined income of 8,400,000 in a year, and you see them as millionaires that should be in affluence.

Here is the reality.

Expenditure per annum:

• Rent is 1,500,000
• School fees for the three children is another 1,500,000
• Both cars are needed. Fuel for them is (75 litres × 2 × 600 × 4 weeks × 12 months), thus 4,320,000
• Electricity bills 540,000
• Based on bulk purchase of foodstuff, let us put their food at 7,500 daily. That is 2,737,500
• Generator fuelling, refuse bills, pocket change, dependants, offerings in church/mosque, parking tickets, vehicle maintenance, clothing, etc 1,800,000
• They have HMO from their companies, but coverage is inadequate. They need to make provision for medical bills. Cost is unspecified

TOTAL: North of 12,397,500
They are already spending about 4 million above their income, and this is a modest model
(This is why the people you think have good jobs are now perennial debtors)

Remember this couple have cars before now, otherwise how do they purchase cars in this present economy?

Can this couple ever become property owners?

Our sad reality pushes parents to quicken the development of their children, and foist income-earning on them.
That is why there are lots of Yahoo boys and Oloshos in the suburbs and hinterlands and other areas where poverty is a hard-line theme.
That is why underage hawking will not go away that soon.
This is why drug abuse is on the rise, as many imbibe in order to escape into alternative delusional worlds
And this is why crime comes easily now (those traffic robbers and muggers are now contributing income to their parents meagre earnings

Till our leaders realize we are hitting the boiling point, and really start fixing things, this is the sad reality.

This is why many people are doing racketeering at work.
Simply, the income is playing a lost game of catch-up to a run-away economy being corrupted daily by devilish sets of people; as they nitro-accelerate it to crashing.

Every policy-maker and stakeholder need to pause, and check the crystal-ball for the type of future that their action is bringing upon this nation.

Forget all the irrelevant and unthought-out palliatives.
Concentrate on fixing electricity and fuel issues, and we are on our way to recovery.
Those are the two things that basically hoist rising costs, especially transport and food

We need to act now, the lava is rising…