Living standards fall

Living standards in Nigeria have been falling and women are among the people hardest hit by their deterioration, Nkoyo Toyo of the non-governmental Gender and Development Action told IRIN. The economic situation has resulted in “lots of women” heading families, Toyo said. Transport is one area in which the deterioration has been evident and, Toyo added, some women have to make dangerous bus rides to provide for hearth and home. She said she had seen women fall off the backs of overloaded vehicles “and nobody cares”. Living standards have fallen partly because there is a shortage of petroleum products, doing business is costly and jobs are scarce, PANA reported the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) as saying in its 1998 statement of account released last weekend. The CBN said Gross Domestic Product per capita had declined to US $313 from US $342.2 in 1997. There was one doctor for 4,977 people in 1998, whereas the 1996 ratio was 1:4,706. The government, it said, had invested heavily in poverty alleviation programmes in which modest loans were made to rural small-scale private enterprises and farming. Despite these efforts, the CBN said, major social indicators reflecting living conditions worsened during the year under review. Toyo said collapsed infrastructure, services and a lack of accountability had contributed to the downward spiral of living standards. However, she said, a country’s standard of living had a seldom evoked attitudinal dimension, whereby just believing that change is possible alters behaviour, which can make change probable. “There are fundamental problems and long-term planning is needed,” Toyo said.