The harsh economic situation in Nigeria has not been without some positive side effects on our socio-economic life. Truly, however gloomy the cloud might be, it will always have a silver lining. Take cash farmers, for example. For a long time, after petroleum became the chief earner of foreign exchange, no one gave any thought to the potentials of cocoa, palm-kernels and groundnut. For every Nigerian, petroleum, the black gold, was the only attraction. However, with the massive devaluation of the local currency, each pound or dollar from the world markets translates into a much higher volume of local currency for exporters. So, while the price of farm produce has not significantly increased in the international market, each farmer now earns more in local currency from every ton of produce exported.
Then there is the revival of local industries. The affluence of the past decades had meant the importation of many finished products. The local industries, mostly in their infancy, were faced with stiff competition. Now, with hardly sufficient resources to support Nigerians’ unbridled appetite for imported goods, the inevitable alternative is to turn to previously neglected local products, accept them and bear with their inadequacies.
Quite apart from these, Nigerians are now learning to maintain what they have. Ageing equipment is no longer discarded for new ones. Nigerians are discovering that a car can keep moving for up to two decades. Car owners, worried by the possibility of being reduced to using public transport, now nurse their old cars as mothers nurse their babies. Frivolous celebrations, too, are less common; Nigerians no longer squander thousands of naira remembering their long-dead grandparents. Regular party-goers, too, now have to engage themselves more profitably. Everyone has had to learn to handle money with discipline. The truth is that most of those who have not have paid dearly for it.
As soon as I took the newspaper from the ____38_____ I quickly ______39______ through the pages, and stopped at the sports page. There, the picture of Marvin Hagler, the boxer, attracted me. He was preparing for _____40______ of his title. The ______41______ harped on Hagler’s previous fights and ______42______ an easy victory over his _____43______. I then read through the ______44______ which usually state the paper’s opinion on current issues. The ______45______ were very many, with some of them taking up full pages. There was only one _____46______ by an artist whose intention was clearly to _______47______ readers. There was also a full page _____48_____ announcing the death of a prominent Chief. In the column for serious-minded readers was a ______49______ on political transition, one of the _______50______ issues of the time.