P.O.Box 43
Oshodi
Lagos
Nigeria.
15th July, 1989

Dear Alex,
How are you and your studies? I hope that you are doing very fine. I received your letter last week and the content was well understood. It will interest you to know how the current economic situation in the country has affected our life as a family.
I will be very happy that you know the present economic situation in Nigeria. Things are not the way they used to be five years ago. There is harsh economic situation everywhere and it is taking its toll on every Nigerian family. It is very disheartening to inform you about the poor economic situation in our country. As a result of this, the financial condition of our family has deteriorated over the years.
Alex, you will discover that you have not received money from daddy in the last two years. The reason is that daddy is going through a lot of economic hardship now. Things are not alright with the family. As you must have known daddy was retrenched last year and since then he had not been able to secure another job. Even before he was retrenched, he could not meet all the financial responsibilities because his salary was too meagre. His retrenchment only exacerbated the serious economic hardship that the family is undergoing. In fact, daddy has to sell his land to augment the little income which mummy realises from her petty trading.
As a result of this, many things go wrong in the family. My brothers and I are always at the receiving end. We were withdrawn from the private schools we attended to public schools. Our parents took the decision when they found it increasingly difficult to pay our school fees. This has affected John psychologically as he finds it difficult to cope and as a result, he behaves stubbornly most of the time as a protest to the decision.
Furthermore, the hard economic situation has affected the harmony and peace which had hitherto reigned in our home when you were in the country. Now there are frequent squabbles between daddy and mummy. They no longer agree most of the times simply because daddy can't back up most of his ideas with financial muscle. For instance, mummy quarelled with daddy recently because Peter had no shoes to wear to a birthday party and daddy couldn't buy him a new pair of shoes.
Now, you will realise that the devastating economic situation in Nigeria has affected the once unified family that you knew some years back. l fi advise you to look for a job in London so that you can pay your school fees and meet up with other expenses. Extend my greetings to all your friends.

Yours sincerely.
Samuel.