A Kano man, Ibrahim Yahaya, who sells fried yam and chicken at Mammy Market Gate in Effurun, Delta State, has revealed that he married five wives because one wife can cheat on him and break his heart. The 45-year-old father of nine disclosed this in an interview with Nigerian Tribune at the weekend. I have five wives and I have nine childrenfour girls and five boys, he said, noting that they, along with his elderly parents, remained hundreds of kilometres away in Kano. There is no need to marry just one wife, he said with a shake of his head, If you have one wife, she can cheat on you and break your heart, so I decided to have five of them. Yahaya had come to Warri, a hub of the South-South region, two years ago with a clear mandate: to hustle. This arduous migration was driven by the universal pursuit of a better source of income, a desperate attempt to outrun the economic realities that had crippled his former trade in the North. Speaking further, Yahaya lamented over the high cost of living, drawing a comparison between the current administration and its predecessor. Nigeria was far better when Buhari was the president than now that Tinubu is the president, he stated. The cost of living, he lamented, has skyrocketed to levels that made basic survival a relentless fight. He recalled an era that now feels like a distant fantasy, where his margin for profit was substantial, and the price point of his food made it accessible to the masses. "When Buhari was in power, the fried chicken that I sell for N500 now was sold for N100 and N200, he lamented. The yam tubers he purchases for frying now cost a small fortune compared to the past, stripping his business of profitability. The yam that was N3000 to N5000 during Buhari time, is now N10,000 to N15,000, he explained, detailing how the cost of a basic ingredient had tripled, forcing him to charge higher prices while still struggling to break even. He affirmed their desperate resolve, adding; We cant stop hustling because we dont want to go hungry, that is why we are still managing things the way we see them. The current economic environment has profoundly impacted his ability to support his family back in Kano. The money he manages to send home is a pittance compared to their needs, yet they must make do with the meagre resources available. We are just trying to survive. We are just managing. What I send home to them is barely enough to feed but we are managing," he said. Yahaya said the yam frying business in Warri was, in fact, his fallback plan as he had initially been selling provisions in Kano, but the harsh economic climate forced him to abandon that venture entirely and migrate southwards. He had hoped that Warri, with its oil economy and relative wealth, would offer him a better source of income, but he quickly had to settle for yam frying to make ends meet, trading one low-margin hustle for another. "The government should do something before people start falling down on the streets due to hunger and high cost of living, he warned.
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