Nigerians spend most on food, transportation

Nigerians spend heavily on food, transport, and accommodation, according to responses from a recent tweet by Omoyele Sowore, African Action Congress party (AAC).

Sowore, AAC presidential candidate tweeted and asked Nigerians how much it costs them to live in Nigeria monthly.

His tweet reads, "How much does it cost you to live in Nigeria per month? Please be honest with me. Drop the real figures! Take your time to calculate. Thank you!"

A farmer and surveyor who identifies as @ai_goal replied that he spends a total of N133,000 monthly.

"Food and provision 65k, kids school expenses excluding school fees 12k, parents 20k, fuel for gen, call card data (including wife's) 21k, miscellaneous 15k," he said.

He added that to ensure the food lasts a month for the family, he skips meals and eats morning and night.

Also @christic1, a virtual assistant tweeted "we spend roughly 90-100k monthly to stock the house for a family of 4."

@Ninuola_, Architect, activist, and writer gave a breakdown of her monthly expenses which summed up to N232k per month, in her response to Sowore's tweet.

"Fuel-30k, data subscription-12k, feeding -50k, accommodation-30k, car maintenance -30k, electricity-6k, hair-15k, cable tv subscription-9k, family and friends billing-50k making a total of 232k"

Sowore tweet showed that the top of Nigerians’ spending was on feeding, most people from the replies spends between N30,000-N75,000 on feeding monthly. Next to feeding was transportation cost, the responses showed that the average spent on transport is N15,000-N30,000.

Accommodation also took a chunk of Nigeria's disposable income, most of the replies showed that people spent N30,000-N75,000 monthly.

Read also: Rice prices surge most in S/South, S/West

The cost of living squeeze is influencing discretionary spending habits, as people are spending more on non-discretionary items.

This year, Nigerians experienced higher food prices with headline inflation at 21.09 percent in October, as the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported a persistent increase in 9 months and food inflation at 23.77 percent.

Also, crippling fuel scarcity and higher diesel prices in the past months have caused many Nigerians to spend more on transport.

The population of Nigerians dragged below the poverty line continuously increases on the back of soaring inflation rate and the high cost of living.

The recent poverty report by NBS showed that 63 percent of Nigerians (133 million) suffer from multidimensional poverty; meaning that two in three people are poor and experience just over one-quarter of deprivation such as health, the standard of living, and work.

The World Bank recently projected that Nigeria's accelerating inflation will push an additional 7 million into poverty by the end of 2022.

A report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), stated that the effects of recent flooding and high fertilizer prices could become more entrenched, negatively impacting both agricultural production and food prices in 2023.

Evogbai Best, @best_evbogbai on Twitter listed his monthly expense but couldn't give a total sum of it

"This is a serious matter, foodstuff 92k, house rent 18k, fuel gen&car 26k, airtime 17k, Gotv 3.5k, school runs 10k, lesson teacher 12k, toiletries 3k, family friends 40K depends, school fee per term 180k. Total on God."

Jolaoso Ayo's, an agro-allied consultant breakdown also showed that he spent more on food than other expenses. House rent-15k, Office rent-6k, Transport-26k, Generator fuelling-8k, IBEDC-6k, secutrity2k, foodstuff-45k, gas-8k, waste management-5k, data-10k, call credit-2k.

BusinessDay analysis of the replies discovered that very few people included savings or spending on their healthcare.

Also from the comments, it costs a single person to live in Nigeria N50,000-N90,000 and families of four and above N150,000-N300,000. These figures are above the Nigeria minimum wage of N30,000 with a rising unemployment rate of 30 percent

According to the ‘Consumer Pulse Survey’ in October 2022 by Pierrine Consulting, consumers noticed changes in price and entry of new brands in mostly the food and utility category of their spending.

NBS reported a 12 percent increase in Nigeria's household consumption expenditure in the first half of 2022 compared to 2021.