Life in Abuja Part 1 of 3

Abuja, Nigeria’s Capital City is truly beautiful; a first visit to the city would leave you mesmerized. The city is surrounded by magnificent structures, tourist centers, game reserves, entertainment spots, beautiful and spacious gardens, luxurious hotels, government offices, private companies, beautiful streets, laced with flowers and street lights that would create aesthetic night life and leave you puzzled at night as to whether you are truly in Nigeria. The city may not be as beautiful as Dubai, Oslo or New Jersey, but compared to the conventional Nigerian environment, Abuja is surely a place to be and live in. The city has been rated as the fastest growing city in Africa owing to the massive perpetual construction that would make you wonder if the city is one big construction site. Virtually all necessary social amenities that would make habitation easy and pleasurable are in place – good road network, water supply, security, schools, power, shopping malls, transportation, entertainment, tourism, standard businesses, markets, etc. (more after the cut)

A visit to the city would turn you into an Oliver Twist of some sort by always craving to relive the euphoria of living in the breathtaking ambience of the lovely city of Abuja. However, like most beautiful things, living in Abuja comes with a price, in fact, a big price. According to a survey of the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) in 2013, Abuja is the 18th most expensive city in the world and the 2nd in Africa with a total expenditure score of 107.4. This was reached, using cost of items such as food, housing, clothing, transportation as benchmark. Living in Abuja leaves a hole in the pocket as the prices of conventional commodities in the city are sometimes twice the amount of the same commodities in other locations. Bearing the cost of food, transportation, clothing, entertainment, and other logistic miscellaneous expenditures, some ballsy residents of Abuja sometimes spend more than they earn while others simply take a bow and relocate to less expensive cities. While the cost of some aforementioned expenditures such as transportation is fair, compared to that of other cities, there are major critical aspects that contribute to the expensive nature of the city – housing/accommodation, education, shopping, clothing, healthcare and remunerations for services rendered, the cost of which are notoriously expensive.

To be continued...