Popular Nigerian author, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, has decried the worsening economic situation in the country, lamenting how the ongoing hardship reduced middle-class Nigerians into beggars.
Speaking on Channels Television, Adichie said: “Life has become so hard in Nigeria, and me I can see it. For example, people who were formerly kind of securely middle class, not that life was rosy for them, but they got by – are now people who beg and are in need. That worries me greatly.”
She added that considering the level of suffering in the country, the biggest political judgement should be about the lives of ordinary Nigerians, adding: “The level of suffering, how expensive food has become… I think the biggest political judgment one can make is about the lives of ordinary people.”
Describing the situation as terrible, the novelist wondered how persons earning minimum wage are managing to survive.
“People talk about the stock market. Personally, I don’t really care about those sorts of things. What I care about is: that person earning minimum wage, how is that person getting on in this economy? It’s the suffering that worries me the most. And it’s terrible.”
Although not justifying illegal actions, Adichie warned that hardship could drive people to consider desperate measures they wouldn’t ordinarily think of.
“It’s not to excuse crime. But I think when life gets very hard, even people who before would not have considered certain things suddenly are willing to, and that’s dangerous to society,” she said.
