AWC CORRESPONDENT REPORT
There are signs of pressure everywhere — and sometimes they appear in places we least expect.
An African Writers Centre (AWC) correspondent travelling through an airport observed a striking pattern: repeated announcements by officials concerning passengers who had forgotten their luggage, bags and even laptops at screening points.
One announcement follows another. A passenger returns hurriedly for a forgotten bag. Another discovers that a laptop was left behind at the security screening machine. Officials patiently call out descriptions, hoping to reunite travellers with their belongings.
It may appear to be ordinary absent-mindedness. But could there be something deeper behind the pattern?
Nigeria is passing through an exceptionally demanding economic period. The cost of food, transportation, energy, housing and other essentials continues to put pressure on household incomes. While headline inflation has eased, food inflation has continued to move in the opposite direction, underscoring the difference between macroeconomic indicators and what many households actually feel in their daily lives.
For many Nigerians, the mind is constantly calculating: How much is left? What will I eat? How do I get home? How do I pay the next bill? What happens tomorrow?
That constant mental burden can leave people distracted, hurried and exhausted.
The AWC correspondent therefore sees these forgotten bags and laptops not merely as amusing airport incidents, but as small, visible signs of a society carrying a heavy invisible load.
This is not to say that every forgotten item is caused by economic hardship. People forget things everywhere. But when such incidents appear repeatedly amid widespread financial and emotional pressure, they invite a bigger conversation about the human cost of economic stress.
Nigeria needs an economy where people are not merely surviving from one day to another, but have enough stability to think, plan, work and live with dignity.
Sometimes, the first evidence that a society is under pressure is not found in economic statistics. It is found in the little things people begin to forget.
By Amah Alphonsus Amaonye
Director General, African Writers Centre (AWC)
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