The day I learned that a full tank is not the same thing as a full pocket

In 1988 I was a young clerk in the Ministry of Education, and I remember the day they announced the fuel subsidy removal. My colleague, a man named Segun, came to my desk and said, 'Kunle, this thing will finish us.' I laughed. I was earning small money then, but petrol was cheap, and I did not understand what he meant.

Thirty-eight years later, I read that Alex Otti said anyone praying for petrol subsidy to return does not mean well for Nigeria. I sat on my veranda in Ibadan and thought about Segun. He was not a prophet. He was just a man who understood that when you remove a crutch, the leg must be strong enough to stand. The problem is not the removal. The problem is that our leg has been weak for too long.

My pension is small. The price of everything has tripled since I retired. But I have learned that the answer is not to keep begging for the crutch. The answer is to find a way to walk. My garden feeds us more than my pension does now. What did you learn to do when the money stopped reaching?