Abuja residents are now cut in the crossfire of battling the soaring price of food items and cooking gas as inflation in the country continues to go higher.
MAWA FOUNDATION visited five cities in Abuja, Kubwa, Bwari, Dutse Alhaji, Karu, and Lugbe to find out the price of cooking gas and interview its users.
At Dutse Alhaji, Bwari, and Kubwa, 12kg cooking gas goes for N6k at the gas-approved filling stations while individual vendors sell the same 12kg for N6, 500 depending on your bargaining power.
At Lugbe and Karu, 12kg cooking gas goes for N6k and N6, 500 respectively depending where you are buying from.
Some residents who spoke to MAWA shared their frustration over the high cost of cooking gas. They, however, pointed out that when one adds the high cost of the product and food items, residents are going through hell to afford food, eat and be alive.
Mrs. Amaka Nkiru, while speaking to MAWA, said the high cost of cooking gas combined with the high cost of food items makes life difficult for Nigerians, especially Abuja residents who live in cities where things are often very expensive.
“When you combine the high cost of cooking gas and the high cost of food items in the market, living in Nigeria at this time can be equated with living in hell, our leaders should have mercy on the poor” Nkiru told MAWA.
Mrs. Ruth Akpan who spoke to MAWA at Karu village disclosed that it is increasingly becoming difficult to afford food and cooking gas in Nigeria considering how expensive they have become.
Akpan who said she has a family of five said she is facing huge difficulties feeding her three kids as a result of the high price increase in food items while adding that the recent surge in the price of cooking gas will make life more complicated and difficult for her and the family.
This is even as Akpan told MAWA that she earns N35k monthly salary and has no other source of income.
“My monthly salary is N35K, and cooking gas is now N6k, and when you take into consideration the high cost of food items in the market and other bills, how does one expects us to survive,” Akpan told MAWA.
In Kuje, Josephine Omigue, who spoke to MAWA at the gas filling station, while lamenting the roaring price of food items in the country, appealed to the Nigerian government to do everything within her power to address what she described as unimaginable inflation.
“This is the situation in Nigeria today, price of 12 kg cooking gas is now N6k, and minimum wage for workers is N30k and many do not even get the pay, how do you expect the citizens to survive and be alive,” Omigue said.