Change is relative. To me, change can be either good or bad and what stands as good change for someone else may not be good change for me.
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Nigeria has experienced so many changes as its leaders change but these recent years have been the most interesting, beginning with the change in the currency appearance sometime in 2023.
When I heard the information that from the end of the year the old naira notes would no longer be accepted, I thought it was a prank so I didn't pay attention to it. I had some money saved up in my piggy bank and wasn't interested in the long process of submitting it to the bank.
As time went on and we all discovered that it wasn't just a rumor, everyone in my hostel room began to head over to the bank one after the other to change their old notes to new naira notes.
“But what is the essence of changing these notes now? Does it increase the worth of our currency?” Amy, one of my roommates asked as she turned the now green 500 naira note in her hands. I chuckled and shook my head. When it came to matters like this and I wasn't with my girls, I made sure not to indulge, even if I was asked a direct question.
“It's just an unnecessary change. What we need now is an economic boost not a new currency design” Chioma, the girl who slept on the bunk above me said.
They were correct but what could we do? The currency had been changed and there was nothing we said that could change it back to the way it had always been, whether it was an unnecessary change or not.
As if that was not change enough, I began to observe a sudden hike in the price of petroleum. Growing up, we had this lamp which had to be fueled by kerosene for it to burn and I remember that my mom used to send me with a plastic bottle to get a litre for only 50 naira.
Just a couple of days ago, I was heading to school on a minibus when my eyes caught something. There was a price board in a filing station and it read; KEROSENE: 1,450 naira. I nearly shouted and had to place my hand over my mouth to stop myself.
The man seated close to me raised a brow in surprise. “Are you okay?” He asked. His brows were furrowed with concern. I bobbed my head up and down then turned back to see if I had seen the right price on the board.
It was written clearly, 1,450 naira.
The man seated next to me seemed to understand what was going on so he smiled and shook his head.
“Is it the prices of things?”
“The price of kerosene!” Two other heads turned in the bus so I had to reduce my voice. “The last time I got kerosene, it was 50 naira per liter”
He threw his head back and released a bout of hysteric laughter.
“That was almost in the year 2000”
I joined in the laughter, “That was 2012”.
I couldn't believe that in my lifetime, kerosene had gone from 50 naira per liter to 1,450. I wondered how much it would cost in my children's time. They probably would never be able to understand when I told them that a liter of kerosene was once sold for 50 naira.
It would just be like when my mom told me that her first salary was 15 naira and she used to get foodstuffs and new clothes with the same money and have some extra change.
That was another area where drastic change had occurred, there was suddenly a hike in food and even housing. And the change happened every single day. Just a couple of days ago, my landlord called a meeting and said that he was going to increase the house rent because he was installing a solar system in the compound.
Since I wasn't in the compound during the meeting, one of my neighbors, CJ, called me to inform me.
“Your rent will be 200k from next year,” I shook my head in disbelief. How would a student pay 200k for house rent just so he or she could live a comfortable life?
Cheaper houses meant a low-quality lifestyle; there would either be bad roads, no light, no water, or no security, or even all of them at once. To get a good apartment with light, water, good roads, and security, you needed to have a lot of money at hand, student or not.
The hike in food was the most annoying change, even a packet of Maggi seasoning was almost a thousand naira now. Nothing seemed to be cheap anymore.
Then the most recent change is the change of the national anthem. I still cannot understand what difference changing the national anthem would make in Nigeria but since it is what the President of the country has decided to change, we have all decided to accept it whether it has proven to have any impact or not.
