By Aare Amerijoye DOT.B
Call him Sunday. He is an Idoma man of 44, a university graduate, eight years on Grade Level 10 in a federal agency in Abuja. He is husband to Ene and father of 4. By the reckoning of his parents’ generation, he has arrived. He is a senior officer of the Federal Republic.
Under the federal salary structure adjusted after the new minimum wage, Grade Level 10 runs from 1,806,041 naira a year at Step 1 to 2,356,897 naira at Step 14 in consolidated salary. At Step 8, Sunday’s consolidated salary is 2,102,656 naira a year. Add his allowances, including the peculiar allowance reviewed upward for federal workers from 1 May 2026, and his gross pay comes to about 250,000 naira a month, more than three and a half times the national minimum wage. Take out pension, housing fund, tax and union dues, and about 205,000 naira reaches his account.
And yet, at 4.40 in the morning, Sunday steps out of his rented room and parlour in Mararaba and walks past his car without looking at it. That is the first thing this government taught even its senior officers: not to look at what they can no longer afford.
THE CAR UNDER THE MANGO TREE
It is a 2006 Corolla, bought secondhand in 2022, when a litre of petrol cost less than 200 naira. Dust now sits on the windscreen. The tyres have gone soft.
His tank takes 50 litres. Dangote Refinery raised its petrol gantry price from 1,265 naira to 1,350 naira per litre with effect from 12 September 2026. Within days, filling stations in parts of Abuja were approaching 1,500 naira. Take 1,400 naira, below what much of the capital now pays. One full tank costs 70,000 naira. That is more than a third of what a Level 10 officer takes home in a month, and exactly the legal wage of the man who cleans his office.
A senior officer now pours a third of his month into one tank of petrol.
In May 2023, before “subsidy is gone” was pronounced at the inauguration podium, the same tank cost about 9,250 naira. Petrol has multiplied more than 7 times since.
THE BUS AT DAWN
So the car stays under the mango tree, and Sunday joins the queue for the commuter bus. The fare is 1,200 naira each way. Over 22 working days, that is 52,800 naira, more than a quarter of everything he takes home, spent simply getting to his desk.
Atiku’s answer begins where the price begins, at the refinery gate. Under the Atiku Economic Recovery Plan, support moves from imported refined products to domestic production. Qualifying Nigerian refineries receive crude at preferential rates, refine it at home and supply the market at lower prices. The intervention is capped, budgeted and independently audited, and the refineries are bound to pass the benefit to consumers. Cheaper petrol at source means a cheaper bus fare, and a cheaper everything that rides to market on a lorry.
THE POT ON THE FIRE
Every price that rides on that lorry ends in Ene’s kitchen. She cooks for 6. Ask any Nigerian mother what a decent day’s food costs such a house and she will count it on her fingers. There is the swallow or the rice, about 3,000 naira. Fish or a little meat for the soup costs 3,500 naira. Palm oil and groundnut oil come to 800 naira, pepper, tomatoes and onions to 1,000 naira, crayfish and seasoning to 700 naira, and vegetables to 500 naira.
That is close to 10,000 naira a day and 300,000 naira a month, nearly one and a half times everything a Level 10 officer takes home.
Then there is the fire itself. The average price of refilling a 12.5kg cylinder of cooking gas stood at 10,323 naira in April 2023. By April 2026, the National Bureau of Statistics put it at 22,382.20 naira. The fire now costs more than double what it cost before this government, before a single thing is placed on it.
So Ene does what millions of Nigerian mothers now do. She cooks the swallow and leaves out the soup. The children eat eba with pepper water, garri soaked with sugar and groundnut, and white rice with nothing on it. The soup pot comes down from the shelf on Sundays.
Under this government, soup has become a luxury and food has been reduced to filling the stomach.
A May 2026 market survey found a 50kg bag of rice selling between 53,000 and 82,000 naira depending on location. Food inflation stood at 19.57 per cent year on year in August 2026. Adamawa recorded 38.85 per cent, Zamfara 37.96 per cent and Bayelsa 36.20 per cent.
Atiku’s answer is to make the farm safe and the farming cheap again. His agenda commits to drawing Nigerians back to the land by securing farming communities and lowering production costs. It promises greater access to finance and support for farmers and agricultural entrepreneurs. It also commits to opening the land borders to legitimate commercial activity, reviving lawful cross-border business and regional trade. Food grown in peace, carried on cheaper fuel, is food that reaches Ene’s pot with soup in it.
THE ROOF OVER THEIR HEADS
The kitchen sits under a roof that also has a price. Sunday did not always live in Mararaba. He was pushed there. When he came to Abuja, a self contained flat in the city was within reach of an officer who saved. It no longer is.
The Real Estate Developers Association of Nigeria reports that a self contained apartment in Abuja, which rented for 400,000 naira, now goes for between 800,000 naira and 1.5 million naira a year. Had Sunday stayed in the city, such a flat would swallow between a third and nearly two thirds of everything he takes home in a year.
The cause is not hidden. By the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission’s own figures, a 50kg bag of cement sold for about 9,300 to 9,700 naira in January 2026. By mid year it had reached 13,000 to 15,000 naira in some places. Every block and every bag of plaster carries the cost of the energy and haulage this government has priced out of reach, and the landlord passes it to the tenant.
This year Sunday’s landlord raised his room and parlour from 250,000 naira to 450,000 naira, payable in one sum. That single payment is more than 2 months of his take home pay. Sunday, a Level 10 officer of the Federal Republic, borrowed half of it.
Atiku’s answer attacks the cost of building at its roots, which are energy and haulage. Cheaper petrol and diesel from home refineries lowers the cost of moving sand, blocks and cement. His plan revives the Eastern port corridor through Port Harcourt, Calabar and Warri, alongside the Uyo Deep Sea Port. It is designed to relieve the congested Lagos corridor and lower logistics costs across the country. When building costs fall, the landlord’s excuse falls with them.
THE LIGHT AND THE BAND
Inside that room, the bulb is another bill. Sunday’s street receives perhaps 10 hours of power on a good day. Yet the feeder was reclassified, and the neighbours now argue with the distribution company every month over which band they are billed on.
In April 2024 the regulator raised the Band A tariff from 66 naira per kWh to 225 naira per kWh. Families on wrongly banded feeders across the country have learned what it means to pay premium rates for darkness. Sunday now spends 15,000 naira a month on the prepaid meter, and the fridge has become a cupboard.
Atiku’s agenda commits to reviewing the tariff classification system to end what his campaign calls discriminatory billing and make electricity affordable. A man should pay for the light he receives, not for the band someone else wrote beside his name.
THE SICK CHILD
Then come the bills nobody plans for. In July the youngest caught malaria. The clinic took 15,000 naira for tests and drugs. Sunday paid with money meant for school books. The last time Ene was ill, she treated herself at the chemist, because the hospital has become a luxury for the sick who can afford to be sick.
Atiku’s plans commit to a major overhaul of healthcare through institutional reform and wider access to quality, affordable basic care. They also tackle the shortage of medical personnel and their pay and welfare. A primary health centre that is staffed and stocked is the difference between a mother treating herself at the chemist and a mother treated by a nurse.
THE SCHOOL GATE
The school books he spent on the clinic are still unbought, and schools resume this month. Free basic education has long been written into Nigerian law. Yet the list that comes home with Sunday’s younger children still carries PTA dues, exam fees and development levies, and after them uniforms, sandals and books. They wait for him like creditors. His first daughter is in her second year at a federal university on a student loan, and she already asks how she will ever repay it.
Atiku’s wider programme provides for free and compulsory primary and secondary education. That means the whole of secondary school, not merely its junior half. For those who go further, he has committed to reviewing the Nigerian Education Loan Fund, including consideration of debt forgiveness for beneficiaries. His principle is that students should have affordable education and scholarships rather than debts. Sunday’s daughter could begin her working life as a graduate, not as a debtor.
THE LEDGER
Add it up:
Food with soup: 300,000 naira a month
Cooking gas: about 22,000
The bus: 52,800
Rent, spread across the year: 37,500
Light: 15,000
School and the clinic: about 25,000
Even the phone that connects Sunday to his village costs more since an increase of up to 50 per cent in call and data tariffs was approved in January 2025.
The house needs about 450,000 naira a month to live as Nigerians once lived. Sunday takes home about 205,000. The gap of some 245,000 naira is not filled. It is endured, through Ene’s pepper stall, through loans from phone lenders at punishing interest, and through a soup pot that stays on the shelf. A senior officer of the Federal Republic is in debt to an app on his phone.
Under this government, a promotion no longer lifts a man out of hardship. It only raises the level from which he suffers.
Ene’s stall is the second income of millions of Nigerian homes, and it has no capital. Atiku’s agenda establishes a 10 billion dollar startup and entrepreneurship financing programme to give young people and women access to capital. It also widens their share of government appointments and economic opportunity. Credit for Ene is not charity. It is the difference between a tray of pepper and a shop.
AND THE MAN WHO MOPS HIS FLOOR
If this is the ledger of a Level 10 officer, consider the man who mops his office floor.
Yakubu is a Gbagyi man, a contract cleaner at Sunday’s agency, paid the national minimum of 70,000 naira, the price of one tank in Sunday’s Corolla. His ledger does not show a gap. It shows an abyss. The bus alone would take three quarters of his pay, so he walks the first stretch of the journey from beyond Kuje in the dark. His family of 5 eats once a day. His children have not seen a soup pot on a weekday this year.
When Sunday shares his lunch with him, two men of two different grades eat from one plate. Under this government, that is how far a promotion now carries a Nigerian.
THE OTHERS IN THE QUEUE
Give them other names in other towns, and the ledger is the same.
In Kano, Malam Sani, a school cleaner, has returned to his bicycle. Petrol in Kano, Kaduna and Jos is projected to rise to between 1,450 and 1,600 naira per litre.
In Aba, Chiamaka finishes shoes in a small factory. Her employer runs on diesel and has cut the week to 4 days. She is paid for 4 and hungry for 7.
In Makurdi, Terver, a local government clerk, walks to his farm at weekends. The yams he once gave to neighbours, he now sells to pay school fees.
In Okene, Ozavize, an Ebira nurses’ aide, takes every night shift for the extra allowance. Her children are raised by her mother.
At an estate gate in Abuja, Usman, a Fulani security guard, earns 70,000 naira guarding houses whose generators burn his monthly wage in diesel within days.
In Ikole Ekiti, a primary school teacher on a salary not far above the national floor marks exercise books by lamplight and sells akara before the school bell.
Eight Nigerians. Eight peoples. One ledger.
THE GOVERNMENT KNOWS
This is not the complaint of the opposition alone. In June 2026, the President’s own Chief of Staff, Femi Gbajabiamila, told a governance summit in Abuja that the 70,000 naira wage “must be honestly reassessed against today’s realities”.
The workers have done the sums themselves. In a letter dated 2 September 2026, the Federal Workers Forum asked the President and the National Assembly to raise the minimum wage to 300,000 naira. They built that figure from a monthly budget of feeding, transportation, accommodation, electricity, cooking gas, phone and data, the same ledger Sunday keeps. The same letter says federal workers have yet to receive the full consequential adjustment of the 2024 wage.
So the government has confessed the wage is dead. Yet the pump moved again on 12 September, the cement moved again, the landlord moved again, and the confession has not put one extra naira in Yakubu’s hand or Sunday’s.
WHAT SUNDAY WILL CARRY TO THE POLLING UNIT
Every reform has a bill. This government handed the entire bill to the man at the bus stop and told him to wait for the benefits. Sunday has waited 3 years.
Atiku has named welfare and security as his two priorities and called the welfare of citizens the fundamental responsibility of government. His programme stands in the Atiku Economic Recovery Plan and in the 12 point agenda published on 13 September 2026, committed plans placed before men like Sunday to examine before a single vote is cast. Together they offer:
cheaper fuel at source
safe and affordable farming
fair electricity billing
affordable basic healthcare
free and compulsory primary and secondary education
capital for the women who hold Nigerian homes together
One man pronounced his policy and left the people to survive it. The other has laid his plans on the table and asked the people to inspect them.
On 16 January 2027, Sunday will walk past the Corolla under the mango tree once more, and Yakubu will walk beside him. This time they will be walking to the polling unit, carrying 3 years of arithmetic in their thumbs.
121 days remain.
Aare Amerijoye DOT.B
Director General,
The Narrative Force
thenarrativeforce.org
18 September 2026
