Every morning, Jumoke opens her shop by 7 a.m., just before the sun begins to roast the tarred streets of Agege. She sells provisions—sugar, biscuits, indomie, and bread. But lately, it’s the bread that brings her the most shame.

“₦1,200,” she tells a regular customer one morning.

“Ah, madam, last week it was ₦900,” the woman replies, her eyes widening.

Jumoke shrugs, embarrassed but helpless. “Dem bring am like that. I no fit sell less.

”The woman sighs, buys a sachet of milk instead, and leaves without the bread.

Jumoke watches her go. She used to sell twenty loaves before noon. Now, she barely sells six. People still come, but they ask, look at the price, and walk away slowly, as if mourning something lost.

“This is not just about bread,” Jumoke says later. “It’s about dignity. If you can’t afford bread, what can you afford?

”In Nigeria today, the economy is not explained in graphs. It is explained in daily sacrifices—things people used to buy without thinking, now carried in dreams, not plastic bags.