Written By: Hope Eghagha

We are still in January, first month of the New Year. It is the month that closely follows the end of year celebrations, when families meet, people travel, when people get too much to eat, too much to drink, when people sit back a bit and enjoy the throes of dying year, the joy of being counted in the new year. Some do it with reckless abandon, deliberately forgetting the throes that come with spending beyond one’s income in December.

It is the month when some travel home to show wealth, real or imaginary, ill-gotten or legitimate. It is also a period when some return home and look for future partners. It is certainly not a period for dying; yet people die. Although people want to let down their hair in December when basic necessities or the power to do so are absent, it increases despair and hopelessness.

For some, the last week of the last month of the year is a period of thanksgiving. It is a period of looking back and evaluating achievements and failures, of things done and things not done. As one enters middle of January, there is a feeling of passing from one calendar year into another.

January is the month of paying rents too. After the merriment of the last days of December and the early days in January the worker faces the reality of the month of January. January carries both the sweetness of renewal and the dearth of funds to meet some obligations, like school fees, and routine feeding expenses. The rice in the house has been well consumed on account of many visitors and holidaying family members.

In the calendar of workers, it is said to be the longest month. Workers have no choice but to wait and wait for the end to come and for the coming to be over. They then go back into the old cycle. January Blues! It is also when some make promises, about what to avoid, what to do, and what to start. It is filled with some spirit, the spirit of renewal, of commencement and entering a new course. How successful people are in this quest for renewal is a different matter. To overcome the blues, one must do some practical thinking in December. The harshness of the economy and the fact that in some states salaries are not paid make things worse.

 One of the problems of the Nigerian worker is the wage level. Hardly in any sector run by the government can we find any worker who can say that his pay is enough to move to the end of the month in some comfort.

What this exposes the Nigerian worker to is ‘creating ways and means’ for survival. This is one of the reasons for rampant corruption in the Civil Service. The blues also affect traders and service men. When there is no money to spend, things are at a standstill. Stocks from the previous year remain on the shelf until things begin to pick up again, say from March or April. Government spending, which stimulates the economy, is also slow.

It is common knowledge that Government is the greatest spender in the Nigerian economy. The informal sector is impoverished- no power supply, no water, no small credits to stimulate business. Government should, as a matter of urgency, develop policies that would help small-time businesses to wake up and run on their own steam from Day One in the year. Healthy economies run twenty-four hours throughout the year. One of the ways to achieve this, apart from loans and credits, is the availability of power supply.

Going forward, we have to create a system in which you do not have to work in NNPC or Chevron or Mobil International and a big bank to live fairly comfortably in Nigeria. This, by no means, is no justification for corruption. But our elders say that you must first chase away the fox before you tell the hen not to wander near the bush of your compound.

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