In 2024, the New York Times reported that Nigeria was experiencing its worst economic crisis, and even though the government tried to downplay the credibility of the report by claiming that it was all “gloom and doom,” the deteriorating quality of life of the average Nigerian says otherwise.
In this story, Amaka*, 27, shares how her life has taken a drastic turn for the worse since President Tinubu took office and how her hatred for the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) is fueled by the needless death of her mother.
This is Amaka’s story as told to Margaret
My life has changed in the worst way possible since Tinubu became president. I went from having some essential luxuries to having nothing at all. It got even worse after I went for my NYSC. I’ve been speaking against the ruling party since 2014, and some people still think I’m joking. APC has taken so much from me. I was 16 in 2014, when Buhari came into power, but even then, young as I was, I knew something was off with him. After he became President, I started picking up more interest in politics and current affairs because I wanted to know just how bad things would get.
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My parents told me how terrible he was during his time as Nigeria’s head of state. They narrated how he made old people queue for bread, so I was confused when everybody else fell for his tall promises about making ₦1 equal to $1. I was crying when he became president. I just knew that Nigeria was setting itself up for failure.
Three years later, in 2017, I gained admission into the university and thought I would graduate by 2021. That didn’t age well because, in March 2020, ASUU decided to go on an academic strike for almost a year. It was at that time that my hatred for APC doubled.
Shortly after the strike began, COVID-19 set in and forced us all to stay at home. But when things got better and other students returned to school, those of us in Federal Universities still had to wait because the strike was still ongoing. I stayed in school for two extra years because of bad governance.
But 2023 was the year that changed everything for me. My mom fell sick and eventually died because of a government-owned hospital’s inadequacies. She was at the government hospital because that was what my dad could afford. The treatment was subpar, but private hospitals were too expensive for us, so it was never a matter of choice. She eventually died, and my hatred for APC increased. There are basic things that the government owes us, and primary healthcare is one of them.
Shortly after my mum died, I left Lagos to start my National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), and that was when I saw how deep Nigeria’s poverty ran. The sad part is that poverty is institutionalized and designed to make the poor get poorer while the rich get richer. When I was in NYSC camp, I often talked about politics. I was the Orientation Broadcasting Service (OBS) president, so I had the right platform for it. I discussed it so much that other corpers started telling me to tone it down, but I didn’t stop. My goal was to get young people to hate APC as much as I did. Despite the initial kickback, I continued pointing out to corpers that all government officials are public staff who are being bankrolled by taxes from Nigerians. Even during CDS, I used to preach to them, telling them the need to take politics seriously and hate APC because the party is after our future. Unfortunately, some corpers started displaying tribalism and kicking against my opinion, which I still can’t understand because no tribe gets more electricity than the other, and neither do they get special discounts at the market.
I am currently jobless, not because I want to be, but because I had to quit my former job, as the salary could no longer cover my monthly expenses. I was earning ₦180,000 and spending ₦110,000 on transportation alone. In addition to getting stuck in traffic every day, I saw no progress in my life— It just felt like I was wasting away.
I recently withdrew money at the ATM outside of the bank I use, and when the debit alert dropped, I saw I had been charged ₦100 for withdrawing ₦20,000. That ruined my day completely. It might seem minor to some people, but not to me. Buhari should never have been president, and neither should Tinubu. My hate for these bad leaders goes beyond just them. I hate their children, too, and we should all hate them. I spent two extra years at the university, but their children are in Oxford. We shouldn’t be laughing with them.
Right now, I have no APC supporter in my life, I’ve cut all of them off. They know me well enough not to say hi to me. I will be turning 28 soon, yet I can’t account for my achievements. I deserve more than that and anybody who disagrees that we are victims of bad governance is my enemy.
I’m looking forward to 2027 because we’ll finally get another chance to make better choices. I don’t want APC in power anymore. I know that there are politicians who belong to different parties who are also capable of continuing the evil cycle. But I won’t be voting if Nigerians don’t come together to fight APC together. Not because my vote won’t count but because I don’t want to feel a repeat of what happened in 2023.
I am one of the Nigerians who believe that our votes still matter. Even government officials know that they need humans to manipulate votes. Why else will they be paying people to vote for them? They cannot rig without votes. So imagine if we all come out to vote out Tinubu.
I can’t even boast of 8 hours of electricity anymore. My dad and I spend more than ₦8,000 buying fuel every day. Even if electricity is the only thing a good president can give me, I’ll take it.
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