By Ishaya Ibrahim
Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial centre mirrors the kind of losses Nigerians suffered due to the February 16 election postponement.
The election was moved to February 23, to allow the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to prepare better for the new date. This will mean that Nigerians have another date with economic inactivity.
The barbershops, beauty salons, mechanic workshops, traders, cab operators, restaurants, bars, eateries, and so many other business concerns will be shut again to observe the elections.
Nigeria consumes 50 million litres of fuel daily. Lagos alone, accounts for 8 million litres of fuel consumption, almost 20 per cent. That is to say, Lagosians, as Lagos residents are called, expend N1.1 billion daily on the product to enable them to move around and power their small electricity generating sets.
To appreciate the daily movements in Lagos, the LAGBUS, a Lagos mass transit company, has daily passenger traffic of 151, 899 people, according to 2016 data obtained from the website of the Lagos state government. This translates into at least, N30 million daily revenue for the company.
On February 16, the day the election was postponed, the LAGBUS recorded a loss of N30 million.
This is not to add the loss of the yellow buses, Ride Hailing App like Uber, Taxify, and other commercial taxi cabs. Their aggregate losses are in hundreds of millions.
The Okada riders, Keke Napep operators, truck pushers, traders at motor parks, all persons who depended on transactions at motor parks, were denied the opportunity to make the money to fend for themselves and their families.
An Uber driver, Olubunmi Joseph, on hearing that the election was postponed, tried to cut his losses by hitting the road.
He later told TheNiche that he did not make enough money that could cover for the cost of fuel he bought.
“I only got two passengers from 12 pm to 8 pm, and the money could not pay for the fuel that I used for the movements, “ he lamented.
At the Lagos Computer Village, the losses were humongous.
Ojikutu Adeniyi is the head of the market’s union. He had earlier told a newspaper that the daily revenue of the market which deals in computers and other allied products, was in the region of N1.5 billion.
Even though many of the shops opened for businesses, the market was a ghost town. It lacked the usual traffic jam and crowd of people milling around. While many shops were opened, the people to buy the products were not available.
Emeka Oparoacha is a trader at the market, who complained that: “even a memory card I could not sell that day. I left for home feeling empty.”
On Allen Avenue, which is the beehive of suya spots, bars, clubs and other places where Lagosians unwind, the loss in revenue is particularly telling.
The University of Suya, a major suya spots, makes a huge kill every Saturdays with a turnover of almost N1 million.
Umaru Abdullahi, the proprietor, said Saturday sales were special. The numbers were usually high, twice of what he makes any other day. But last Saturday, he made no arrangements for his suya business because of the election, which was later postponed.
At the macroeconomy level, Nigeria suffers two kinds of losses as a result of the election shift – direct and indirect. By direct loss, it means loss in tax revenues for the government. By indirect loss, it means loss of confidence in Nigeria by foreign investors.
Chief Executive Officer at Financial Derivatives, Bismarck Rewane, put a figure to the loss Nigeria suffered as a result of the poll postponement in an interview with THISDAY.
“With Nigeria’s GDP at about $427 billion, divide that by 365 days, you will get the GDP per day of $1,170 billion. So, the fact that everybody stopped work on Saturday, there is a direct cost of $1,170 billion.
Another economist, Professor Sheriffideen Tella, said Nigeria’s inability to manage election processes would affect the way foreign investors perceived us, that is, not serious.
With the damage already done to Nigeria by this unexpected poll shift, it is expected that politicians will introduce reforms that could enhance the capacity of INEC to perform better.