VOX POP– How Has the Recession affected you?

“The major thing everybody complains about is that things are now very expensive in the sense that they are affecting everything such as the way we live. Even books from publishers are now expensive. If you go to the bookshop, they would tell you it was this price before, but now the publishers are complaining so it has actually increased in price. Then Ministry of Transport, if not for the fact that it is a subsidized rate within campus, obviously, we would also have had to deal with high cab fares within school. It has actually affected my savings, I have a particular budget that every week I put this money aside but after buying food stuff and all the things I’m supposed to buy every week, I’m left with very little. What people complain about outside is also what we face here but the thing is they always feel like we get money from our parents, you are not working, they don’t see that the parents are the ones giving us the money and they will tell you there’s recession so everything has to come down.”

“As Students we get money from our parents, they will tell you how much they can give you. Even though some of us have fixed allowances but the fixed allowances did not increase with recession. Before now, you had much and prices were normal and you could buy, now that same amount you now have to buy things at very expensive rates, leaving you with little or no savings.”

Temi Folake

“It has really affected feeding, it’s normal, you have to eat. You can’t say because you are a student or not, it’s just that everybody has to cut budget and manage according to their finances.”

Prince Bola

“The recession has really affected everybody in the country because like we students get our allowances from our parents. They give you the same amount but it doesn’t do anything anymore because like the food supply we usually bought for say N2,000 is like N4000-5000 and they will still expect you to manage everything you have and then you want to shop! Go to a trade fair like this and you want to buy things but you have to just manage.”

Christiana Adeyemi (Faculty of Law, 500, level)

“ First of all, I must say, when it started it actually affected our transport, the shuttle used to be N50 from here to Yaba, they added a bit more and with that they still were not able to give us our change so sometimes you have to pay N100 instead of N70. It also affected the water in school, UNILAG sachet water used to sell for N5 because it’s subsidized here in school, but now it is N10. Eating at Mavis has changed! You could actually buy rice for N50 if you like but now N100 is even smaller than N50, so If you want to eat you’re thinking of N200,she won’t agree for N150, she will say no, it has to be N200, the cheapest is N100.It’s ridiculous.”

Benedicta (Faculty of Sciences)

“The recession has dug deep; even the commonest person in the streets could have reasons to give on how it has influenced him. We on campus feel it in a lot of things, some parties were cut short, prices in certain projects were cut down due to the recession so many issues, you can see the campus is somehow scanty, students have not really resumed; they are out there hustling just to get money.”

Ike Ogbonaya

“It’s very obvious; the prices of commodities and books have gone up. In terms of the everyday student, a good example is that the price to print materials like 10 pages, the price before recession and now is disturbing. Majority of materials we use to study in school we now download it online because we can’t afford to print it. It affects the common Nigerian not to talk of us the students.”

Kingsley  (Economics)

“Recession is an economic problem. In the case of finance, it has affected rigorously, drastically, a lot of things we have to shut down to achieve other things. Personally, I have not been able to carry out the goals I had for this year. That’s the major problem.”

Ademokola

“To me, it has really affected students in terms of transportation, feeding, if it’s affecting our parents definitely it’s going to affect us. As for me now, a final year student, trying to acquire my data, carrying out my project, the recession has affected it. The prices of instrument have gone up. It’s having a bad effect on us, our parents are complaining but what will we do? It has affected us seriously.”

Ogundele Ibukunoluwa

“I think the recession has actually helped the Nigerian youth in the sense of helping them to think inwards, look inwards and be more technical about things. If you look at China, they have more people going into production trying to find out new ways of doing things. But then in Nigeria, we are all reading and reading, we tend to focus on the theory and not the practical.

But right now we have a lot of people producing stuff, going into fabrics, sewing, making stuff generally, and making bags using waste products – recycling. I think it’s good because it will help us circulate the money amongst us. Rather than buying stuff from outside, helping that country’s economy, then utilizing it here and putting the waste here. Making it here, selling it here and doing whatever you want to do it keeps the money circulating in our country.”

 

“Recession has gone a long way in every student’s life – one way or the other. Is it in transport fare, buying of clothes, buying of books, especially books that we are going to read. They’ve actually increased the prices of books because where they are getting them from those ones have also increased it. They are going to be at a loss so they increase it as well. Then food is way more expensive, students are complaining. Prices of clothes, people now go to Yaba. Moreover,Yaba clothes are more expensive than they used to be. Transport fare is very important, there’s no way you want to get to school without using a public service, bus has increased, “Maruwa”(tricycle) fare has also increased.”

Sofowore.

“I believe recession has affected the life of the everyday student in every practical way possible. There’s practically nothing that hasn’t increased from notes to pens.

Your well-being generally cannot function if you’re not getting enough money, and if you are not getting enough money you are not reading well and if you are not reading well, you are failing.”

“Recession has affected us in a lot of ways. Our Academic career, our daily lives, our standard of living. What we are facing right now is that to buy food is hard. For instance, a sachet of pure water that was N5 is now N10.

On our parents’ side, maybe if they used to send N20,000 to their sons and daughters, because of this recession, it’s not enough anymore.”