structure. Married men who are not heads of households often have to live without their families and families often split up when the head loses his job. Nonetheless the family spirit rises above many of the disadvantages of living in Port Harcourt.
Mass migration to Port Harcourt also dislocates cultural structure. Most people, in a wide socio-economic class range, expressed the ideal that they were temporarily in the city and wished to return home. However, in reality, because of economic constraints and because of a sense of failure it seems that only the successful return home. As a result many children grow up without any contact with their cultural roots or wider families, and an extensive entirely urban-orientated younger generation is developing, that is to a large extent economically, socially and emotionally deprived, forming the basis of a culture is to some extent anti-social. Common antidotes to the cultural privations of Port Harcourt life are religion and drugs.
The indigenous people who live on the land that is being taken up by Port Harcourt suffer the same cultural dislocations as the immigrants only more so because they lose forever the option of returning to their villages. In particular such dislocation is suffered by the Ikwerre people to the North of Port Harcourt and the Okrika people to the South. In fact the Okrika culture is especially endangered by the growth of greater Port Harcourt and may disappear altogether in the not too distant future.
One aspect of the recent history of Port Harcourt has been the inter-cultural conflicts, however without being able to delve too deeply into these sensitive issues we encountered more cooperation than conflict, and we conclude that inter-cultural conflict is the result of outside organisation.
21.9 ECONOMIC ISSUES
Poverty in rural areas (exacerbated by the city itself which consumes a disproportionate amount of limited development capital) is the reason why most people come to Port Harcourt, and on arrival poverty stares them in the face. This poverty is real because most incomes are way below the level needed to support even basic needs: we estimate that a family of six needs an income of N15,720 per month for food, water, fuel and rent only; N6,710 per month if they survive on a starvation diet. This does not include clothes, education and essential household items.
Official gross salary scales in the city range between N700 per month for a police constable recruit, to N2,826 for a graduate assistant at Unitech, to N5,068 per month for a senior civil servant (Health Service grade 15, step 8). The minority who work securely in the oil and related industries have much higher salaries of up to ten times the civil and public service rates.
Thus Port Harcourt is an economically schizophrenic city containing a small minority of First World citizens and a large majority of poor Third World citizens. It is no wonder that people resort to corruption and crime to raise their incomes.
Most people see employment as the antidote to poverty, yet many are unemployed, and many incomes come from self-employment in petty trading, servicing and industry.
The mass of citizens in Port Harcourt do not form part of or benefit from the prime economic activity of the area which is the oil industry and the associated oil servicing industry. Income equity is unbalanced and in terms of development there is very little "trickling down" of wealth through society.
Moreover, because the majority of the citizens of Port Harcourt are poor, the wealth generation capacity of the city is low. Housing is a good example where the low
