From broken dreams to new global value chain
THE GUARDIAN
2024 wasn’t a happy year for many globally. A profound economic crisis and sweltering experience further sunk many below the breadline and complicated their despair in Nigeria. Yet at the confluence of these trends is a new nation of foraging Nigerians that has made the world its home. As bleak as the home front appears, Nigerians in Diaspora are the bastion of self-help, lodestars of hope in many homes, and a Nigeria of our dreams. They earned our highest honour.
Jon Clifton, the Chief Executive Officer of Gallup, a global analytics and advisory firm that tries to explain most pressing work and life issues through the famous Gallup World Poll, once argued about the true measurement of happiness. While happiness means so many things to different people, so also is its measurement. But one thing is constant, happiness is mostly devoid of negative emotions, misery, pain and worry. Suppose CEOs closely track their companies’ revenue growth, share prices and bottom-line and world leaders equally get excited at positive GDP numbers, and lower unemployment and poverty rates. What makes citizens happy? Perhaps, optimism.
In 2006, Gallup began conducting global research on subjective well-being, which is used interchangeably with “happiness”. The goal of the research was to definitively report – by country – how people’s lives were going from their perspective. Was the world getting more stressed? Were people more hopeful? Were they getting angrier?
It is easy to think that income inequality explains well-being inequality and, therefore, rising unhappiness. That is certainly part of it. But a great life, according to Gallup is more than just money. After studying the 20 per cent of people who report having a great life, Gallup finds they have five things in common: they are fulfilled by their work, have little financial stress, live in great communities, have good physical health, and have loved ones they can turn to for help.
For a country that used to be the happiest in the world, 2024 was a serious drain on the scanty optimism left in many Nigerians. Inflation did not only pinch the pockets of many homes, but it also literally stole their happiness. Inflation became the stressor, making a mess of their incomes, and purchasing power, and also weakened the capacity of their communities and loved ones to render help. Nigerians are not alone in this quagmire, Ipsos’ What Worries the World survey for November equally affirmed that inflation and crime are top joint concerns of many people globally. The severity of inflation on Nigerians is best imagined considering the spike in prices of goods and services.
While President Bola Tinubu’s reforms are largely responsible for the pains in many Nigerian households, the options before the administration are limited, considering the fragile economy Tinubu inherited from his predecessor. Could he have done better via staggered reforms? Pundits think otherwise considering the political expediency of those decisions.
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