How Nigeria’s Inflation Is Threatening Valentine’s Day For Lovers
With inflation up by 7.58 percent from last year, lovers in Nigeria might have to squeeze their pockets a little more to afford celebrating this year’s Valentine’s Day, go into debt or forgo it altogether.
February 14, Valentine’s Day, is an annual celebration of love, which takes its origin from a Christian celebration of a martyr named Valentine. In Nigeria, February 14 is ‘lovers day’ – a special day for partners to shower love on the person in their life. It’s often looked forward to and usually planned ahead for.
However, with the soaring cost of living, many partners are now hesitant about what to get for their “bae” – a sweet name to describe one’s partner.
For most Nigerians, just a simple gift box with thoughtful gifts like earrings, a fancy bag, a bottle of wine, a teddy bear can make their Val memorable. Yet, with soaring inflation, millions who want to show their partners how much they mean to them on this special day may be unable to afford a gift box for the items they wish to gift their partner. A 2021 data by Picodi showed that on average, men spend ₦13,000 on their partners compared to women’s ₦9,700. However, inflation between January 2021 and January 2024 increased from 16.47 percent to nearly 30 percent, eroding the purchasing power of lovers.
Sylvia Egwuom, the owner of an online gift vendor S_Kay Bougie Boxes, based in Owerri, the capital of Imo State in the country’s Southeast region, said the price of her Removable Square or Rectangular Sturdy Gift Boxes has increased by nearly 40 percent. As of February 2023, Sylvia sold her size 18 box at ₦5,500. This year, the same box goes for ₦7,500. To customize the gift, she charges twice what she charged last year.
In what appears to show that Nigerians are already expressing their love in other ways rather than gifting their partners, Sylvia’s orders have fallen drastically.
“Sincerely, the cost of living deeply affected the orders I received this year,” she lamented.
Nigeria’s 28.92 percent inflation is nearly a three-decade high according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). The cause, in addition to insecurity that has prevented farmers from cultivating their farmlands, thereby pushing food inflation to 33 percent, is the ongoing economic reform by the administration of President Bola Tinubu.
Tinubu came to power in May of 2023 after the country’s presidential election, and during his inaugural speech announced that the “petro subsidy,” a five-decade practice of subsidising of petrol that gulped ₦4 trillion in 2022 alone, is gone. The price of the commodity hiked by 144 percent and now sells at ₦610 in various petrol stations across the country.
With many valentines gifts ordered online and delivered through courier services, the hike in petrol prices has equally affected transport fare, which witnessed a 40 percent increase on a year-on-year basis.
“It is the common man that will bear the brunt of inflation. What inflation does is reduce the purchasing power of the income you have. So, in layman’s terms, the increase in inflation means that what your money could buy yesterday, it cannot afford to buy it again,” Damilare Akanni, a financial expert, said.
Sylvia said that the cost of materials for the gift boxes has doubled.
“The cost of materials is twice the previous prices I bought them.” She added, “last year, I received over 50 gift boxes, but this year ‘is nothing to write home about’,” a phrase she used to describe how drastic her orders have fallen.
