Former South-East spokesman to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Chairman of the Forum of Former Members of the Enugu State House of Assembly, Denge Josef Onoh, has criticised socio-political commentator Reno Omokri over his claim that an average Nigerian can comfortably survive on ₦3,000 daily.
Onoh, in a statement made available to journalists in Abuja, described the claim as “an economic illusion detached from Nigerian reality”, arguing that it failed to reflect household sizes, food inflation and the rising cost of basic services.
He said although ₦3,000 daily amounts to about ₦90,000 monthly, which is higher than the current ₦70,000 national minimum wage, using the calculation in isolation ignored the broader economic pressures confronting Nigerian households.
According to him, Omokri’s argument treats Nigerians as individual economic units, whereas the average Nigerian household consists of five to six people.
Onoh said a family of five living on ₦3,000 a day would have only ₦600 per person, an amount he argued could not provide a nutritionally complete meal, let alone cover three meals, clothing, education and healthcare.
He also cited data from the National Bureau of Statistics, saying the cost of a healthy diet had routinely remained above ₦1,500 per adult per day for minimum nutritional requirements.
Onoh noted that such estimates covered raw food ingredients alone and excluded expenses such as cooking gas, kerosene, charcoal and potable water.
He said the situation was more difficult in major urban centres, where the prices of basic food items had continued to rise.
Onoh claimed that a standard paint bucket of fresh pepper cost about ₦9,000, while fresh tomatoes sold for around ₦12,000.
He added that the prices of rice, beans and tubers had continued to rise amid logistics challenges, while protein sources such as eggs and beef had become increasingly expensive for working-class families.
Onoh said Omokri’s argument also failed to account for regional differences in the cost of living.
He noted that while a rural, agrarian household in the North-West might rely partly on subsistence farming to reduce food expenses, residents of urban centres such as Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt faced unavoidable costs including energy, fuel and intra-city transportation.
According to him, these expenses significantly reduce disposable income before households purchase food.
Onoh also faulted the use of the ₦70,000 minimum wage as justification for a ₦3,000 daily survival budget, describing it as a “regressive economic argument” that could normalise extreme poverty rather than address the structural difficulties facing Nigerians.
He said households spending between 60 and 70 per cent of their income on food would have little left for education, savings and healthcare.
Onoh further criticised what he described as Omokri’s attempt to determine the cost of living by pricing a few raw food items during an isolated market visit.
He said such an exercise did not constitute an accurate representation of the economic reality facing Nigerian households.
“To label ₦3,000 as a viable daily survival threshold for an average Nigerian is to mistake bare subsistence for living, masking a deep humanitarian and economic reality behind superficial retail arithmetic,” Onoh said.
He urged Omokri to base his public commentary on the financial pressures facing Nigerians rather than what he described as political economic calculations.
“I urge Mr Omokri to align his narratives with the empirical financial pressures facing the Nigerian masses rather than serving suffering Nigerians with false political economic arithmetics for the purpose of mere political appointment,” Onoh said.
He added, “The welfare of Nigerians must be treated as a priority of any responsible government and its representatives and not a privilege.”
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