I propose a media program, either for radio or television called "The Market"
Hello, good afternoon and welcome to the market today, the market is the meeting place of all walk of life, food and death being the equalizer of both the rich and the poor. The market is only place which reflects the choices made in elections.
What standard of living they have, or are trying hard to maintain, the market prices goes to determine what remains after sustenance, which goes on to portent that standard.
So let's look at what people are buying, a lot eschew rice, plantains, and beans chased by the price which goes for 1 to 2 thousand naira per tin container, they run to soup ingredients and buying already packed fufu, a choosing that obviates that the meal of importance is the dinner and once a day. A heavy dinner especially fufu which is heavy starch will stay till the afternoon where biscuits and groundnut/garri will bide the time till that warmed soup and heavy constant.
Your egusi and ogbono are grounded in packaged nylon for 500 naira because you wouldn't dare ask the price of a derica container or half a paint rubber bucket.
I remember when a paint rubber used to sell for 500 naira and women would force us to break them out of their shell for street gossip, and evening breeze.
With inflation, 200 naira is the new 50 naira, Okra sells for 6 pieces for 200 naira and in December 10 sold for 500 naira because it was the dry season.
The rain however has no effect on the price of ugwu as it still sells for 500 naira for which is 5 stems with 5 to six leaves per stem a single leaf of ugwu is 20 naira. English spinach and other vegetables sell for 500 naira, and it's is the cheapest.
And Nigerians aren't protesting because I believe there is a radio wave signal playing their subconscious acceptance and suppression with the radio. Roasted fish is the only sold fish even by those who used to sell fresh fish, who are you to sell frozen fish with the price of electricity at 250 naira per KWh, the days of advertising a frozen fish in the sun till it thaws to sell it at half the price as "oku Eko" are gone
Chicken and Turkey are are a no go area as a kilo of mostly bones sell for 8 thousand naira, something else must be feeding Nigerians as I wonder why they aren't protesting in streets and with suicides.This isn't living.
We rather eat our dinasours whole as eggs sell for 5,800 naira per crate, layers farming is now just a hobby and exercise with bag of feed selling at 30 thousand naira per bag.
Date which used to be special treat of mine suddenly lost their taste with a derica container selling for 2 thousand naira, I was so heartbroken I couldn't buy it anymore.
Now calculate with me, A man who earns a minimum wage of 60 thousand naira per month, at 2 thousand naira per day with a wife and two kids invariably has to buy only fufu, which sells for 3 for 500 naira, which is the ration for a grown man. I wonder if he has money for soup considering transport and bills or does he cover his eyes and swallow the white lump so he doesn't necessarily the evil that is his life.
Cow hides are the in thing for people to bite away their frustration and chew out their miserable reality and effect of a rigged election, some buy the dried ones so that they can determine the soak and swallow what might take days to digest, we can't chew a hide for 8 years, I wonder if there are no correlation between these hides, elephant poaching and the reason the Chinese litter our forests.
Our food ration is the leader: 001 rather than 101 or 011, one notices that unlike the known smell of putrefaction the market smells clean, nothing goes to waste, People stand besides ugwu and potatoes shucking the picked stems into waiting bags to feed their goats. Like Terry Crews character in Everybody hates Chris, I played a frugal by going after transit damaged tomatoes and peppers. But I find them payed for before hand, plus they are now few, as the drivers drive carefully when laden with these goods, with the price of fuel at 900 per litre, you wouldn't drive an impending loss to the market.
The market is the true reflection of our election choices, and check how well a government is faring, A government is evaluated by the life of the least citizens, with the level of poverty Nigerians are swimming it is obvious when he meant agbado and cassava, he meant for us to eat it raw.
Raw food takes longer to digest, but like the CNG conversion, we had better head to the hospital for a Gizzard conversion for this is a government for animals. These market people aren't exempt from the agbero system as they must pay daily tax and levies to the powers that be, undocumented and fiendish.
For chasing flies and pouring water on perishables that they are not sure to exhaust, saying a lot about this government effort to alleviate poverty.
The market remains the clear mirror of the government in place, helping Nigerians evaluate their government rather than noise of elephant projects and trillion naira budgets. Let's see the budget of the common man and what his minimum wage can actually buy, it is not the size of the money but the value of the money, is he really living, talk less of a standard of the life he ought to be living.
Look around you and your guess like mine is a doubt,
for such and such Tv, Ejikeme Udeh, Ilepo market.