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NLC protests: Why Nigeria’s economy is in such a mess
Nigeria is currently experiencing its worst economic crisis in a generation, leading to widespread hardship and anger.
The trade union umbrella group, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), held protests in the main cities on Tuesday, calling for more action from the government.
A litre of petrol costs more than three times what it did nine months ago, while the price of the staple food, rice, has more than doubled in the past year.
These two figures highlight the difficulties that many Nigerians are facing as wages have not kept up with the rising cost of living.
Like many nations, Nigeria has experienced economic shocks from beyond its shores in recent years, but there are also issues specific to the country, partly driven by the reforms introduced by President Bola Tinubu when he took office last May.
How bad is the economy?
Overall, annual inflation, which is the average rate at which prices go up, is now close to 30% – the highest figure in nearly three decades. The cost of food has risen even more – by 35%.
However, the monthly minimum wage, set by the government and which all employers are supposed to observe, has not changed since 2019, when it was put at 30,000 naira – this is worth just $19 (£15) at current exchange rates.
Many are going hungry, rationing what food they have or looking for cheaper alternatives.
In the north, some people are now eating the rice that is normally discarded as part of the milling process. The waste product usually goes into fish food.
Widely shared social media videos indicate how some are reducing portion sizes.
One clip shows a woman cutting a fish into nine pieces rather than the average four to five. She is heard saying her goal is to ensure her family can at least eat some fish twice a week.
What is causing Nigeria’s economic crisis?
Inflation has soared in many countries, as fuel and other costs spiked as a result of the war in Ukraine.
But President Tinubu’s efforts to remodel the economy have also added to the burden.
On the day he was sworn in nine months ago, the new president announced that the long-standing fuel subsidy would be ending.
This had kept petrol prices low for citizens of this oil-producing nation, but it was also a huge drain on public finances. In the first half of 2023, it accounted for 15% of the budget – more than the government spent on health or education. Mr Tinubu argued that this could be better used elsewhere.
However, the subsequent huge jump in the price of petrol has caused other prices to rise as companies pass on transportation and energy costs to the consumer.
One other factor that is pushing up inflation is an issue that Mr Tinubu inherited from his predecessor, Muhammadu Buhari, according to financial analyst Tilewa Adebajo.
He told the BBC’s Newsday programme that the previous government had asked the country’s central bank for short-term loans to cover spending amounting to $19bn.
The bank printed the money, which helped fuel inflation, Mr Adebajo said.
What has happened to the naira?
Mr Tinubu also ended the policy of pegging the price of the currency, the naira, to the US dollar rather than leaving it up to the market to determine on the basis of supply and demand. The central bank was spending a lot of money maintaining the level.
But scrapping the peg has led the naira’s value to plunge by more than two-thirds, briefly hitting an all-time low last week.
Last May, 10,000 naira would buy $22, now it will only fetch around $6.40.
As the naira is worth less, the price of all imported products has gone up.
When will things get better?
While the president is unlikely to reverse his decisions on the fuel subsidy and the naira, which he argues will pay off in the long run by making Nigeria’s economy stronger, the government has introduced some measures to ease the suffering.
Nigeria’s Vice-President Kashim Shettima announced the establishment of a board charged with controlling and regulating food prices. The government also ordered the national grain reserve to distribute 42,000 tonnes of grains, including maize and millet.
This is not the first time the government has said it is distributing aid to poor and vulnerable Nigerians, but labour unions have often criticised the government’s method of food distribution, saying much of it does not reach poor families.
The government has also said it is working with rice producers to get more of it into markets and customs officials have been instructed to cheaply sell off bags of the grain that they have seized. In a sign of how bad things are, on Friday this led to a crush in the biggest city, Lagos, which killed seven people, local media report. These hand-outs have now been halted.
The rice was seized under the previous government, which banned imports of rice to encourage local farmers to grow more. That ban was lifted last year in at attempt to bring down the cost but because of the fall in the value of the naira, that has not worked.
Around 15 million poorer households are also receiving a cash transfer of 25,000 naira ($16; £13) a month, but these days that doesn’t go very far.
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.,..Has a net-negative approval rating following the Republican National Convention, CNN found.
Vice-presidential nominees typically receive a ratings bump after their party’s convention, but Sen. JD Vance is bucking the tradition.
On the heels of last week’s Republican National Convention, the Ohio senator is the least-liked vice-presidential candidate since 1980, CNN found in a polling analysis. It noted the data applied to nonincumbents.
Since 2000, vice-presidential nominees typically have had a net-positive rating immediately following the convention, at plus 19 points. Vance, however, is polling at minus 6 points just one week after accepting the vice-presidential nomination and officially embarking on the campaign trail , the network found.
The freshman lawmaker’s lower-than-normal approval ratings are not an anomaly, as Vance has long polled behind other Republicans.
Vance heavily underperformed in his 2022 Ohio Senate race, at least compared with how other Republicans performed in the state that year. Vance defeated his opponent, then-Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan, by only 6 percentage points. In comparison, Republican Gov. Mike DeWine crushed his Democratic opponent, former Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley, by 25 percentage points in that same cycle.
“The JD Vance pick makes no sense from a statistical polling perspective,” Harry Enten, a CNN political-data reporter, said.
Vice President Kamala Harris’ team sent out a press release gloating about the numbers.
“We’d like to be the first to congratulate JD Vance on making history as the least popular VP pick, well…ever,” it said.
The press release went on to list some of Vance’s policies, with the first one being his previous support for a nationwide abortion ban.
The Atlantic’s Tim Alberta tweeted Monday that e ver since President Joe Biden ended his reelection campaign and endorsed Harris to become the Democratic presidential nominee, some members of Trumpworld have questioned whether Vance remains a wise running mate . President Donald Trump faltered with suburban voters in 2020, and Vance’s selection was widely seen as an appeal to base voters instead of one geared toward attracting more swing voters.
Trump’s campaign spent months perfecting its attacks against Biden and has now had to shift its messaging, as Harris poses a different electoral threat from her predecessor. While Biden was struggling to rally young voters and minority voters around his reelection campaign, Harris is more popular with those groups and presents a major upside for Democrats, as they need a high Gen Z and millennial turnout to remain competitive in the key battleground states .
There’s also evidence that Republicans will closely monitor polling over the next two weeks beyond Vance’s low likability ratings, as a Trump pollster said Harris could get a numbers bump following her expected ascent to the top of the Democratic ticket.
- JD Vance breaks polling records in the worst way - July 25, 2024
- Donald Trump’s Losing Election Poll for First Time in Over a Month - July 25, 2024
- FBI Is Not Fully Convinced Trump Was Struck by a Bullet - July 25, 2024
Former President Donald Trump is losing a Reuters/Ipsos poll for the first time since May as Vice President Kamala Harris gains ground.
Harris has become the Democratic frontrunner after President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the race on Sunday, following weeks of pressure from prominent party leaders. Democrats quickly coalesced around Harris, who appears to have enough delegates to win the party’s nomination at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in August.
Trump has led both Harris and Biden in the polls for months, but Democrats say Harris will be able to run a robust campaign in key battleground states over the next several months, arguing that earlier polls may not be indicative of her potential as a presidential candidate.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll released Tuesday shows Harris now leading Trump by two percentage points—44 percent to 42 percent. Trump has led every other Reuters poll throughout June and July against both Biden and Harris.
When independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was included in the poll, Harris’ lead grew to four points, with 42 percent of respondents backing her compared to 38 percent supporting Trump and 8 percent backing Kennedy, Reuters reported.
The poll was conducted on July 21 and July 22, after Biden announced he is stepping out of the race, among 1,241 U.S. adults, according to Reuters.
Trump had not trailed in a Reuters poll in nearly two months. A May 31 Reuters poll found Biden and Trump tied among all respondents, while Biden led by two points—41 percent to 39 percent—among registered voters.
Meanwhile, a Reuters poll conducted from July 15 to July 16 found Harris and Trump tied, each receiving 44 percent. A poll conducted from July 1 to July 2 found Trump leading by one point—39 percent to 38 percent—over the vice president. The same poll showed Trump and Biden tied, each receiving 36 percent of the vote among all respondents.
Another Poll Shows Harris’ Support Increase
Elsewhere, a YouGov/Yahoo News poll released on Tuesday also showed Harris’ gaining support.
The poll, conducted among 1,743 adults from July 19 to July 22, found Harris and Trump tied, each receiving support from 46 percent of respondents. Notably, part of this poll was conducted before Biden ended his campaign.
A YouGov/Yahoo News poll conducted among 1,176 registered voters from June 28 to July 1 found Trump leading by two points—47 percent to 45 percent.
Newsweek reached out to Harris’ spokesperson and the Trump campaign for comment via email.
Harris kicked off her campaign on Monday, visiting the Wilmington, Delaware, headquarters where she addressed campaign issues such as reproductive rights, which Democrats view as a winning issue ahead of November.
On Tuesday, Harris traveled to Wisconsin, a key battleground state. She is set to be joined by Wisconsin Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin, who is up for reelection and notably did not appear with Biden in a visit to the state earlier in July.
o be back in Wisconsin to speak about what is at stake in this election—and how we will defeat Donald Trump and his extreme Project 2025 agenda,” Harris wrote in a post to X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
Meanwhile, Republicans are seeking to ramp up attacks against Harris, criticizing her record on immigration and seeking to tie her record to Biden, who has faced struggling approval ratings among Americans.
- JD Vance breaks polling records in the worst way - July 25, 2024
- Donald Trump’s Losing Election Poll for First Time in Over a Month - July 25, 2024
- FBI Is Not Fully Convinced Trump Was Struck by a Bullet - July 25, 2024
FBI Director Christopher Wray revealed during a marathon testimony on Wednesday that investigators still do not know if former President Donald Trump was grazed by a bullet or a piece of shrapnel during his attempted assassination.
Twice during the hours-long session, Wray told lawmakers that the FBI was still working to determine what exactly struck the former president on his right ear during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. “My understanding is that either it [a bullet] or some shrapnel is what grazed his ear,” Wray told Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Calif.).
Later during the hearing, Committee Chair Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) asked Wray if investigators knew where all eight bullets fired by Thomas Matthew Crooks ended up after the shooting.
“There is some question about whether or not it was a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear, so it is conceivable, as I sit here right now, I don’t know whether that bullet, in addition to causing the grazing, could have also landed somewhere else,” Wray testified.
Jordan did not follow up with any questions about the shrapnel.
Speaking at the Republican National Convention just days after the assassination attempt, Trump said the bullet “came within a quarter of an inch of taking my life.”
“I heard a loud whizzing sound and felt something hit me really, really hard on my right ear,” the former president described the scene.
Trump’s former White House physician, Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas), later told a conservative talk show that he examined the wound in the days immediately after the shooting. “It [the bullet] was far enough away from his head that there was no concussive effect from the bullet, and it just took the top of his ear off.”
As the investigation into the assassination attempt continues, Wray offered the committee some new insights—including the revelation that Crooks tried to research how far away the shooter was from former President John F. Kennedy when he was assassinated in 1963.
Trump responded with a post on Truth Social while the hearing was still taking place, calling for Wray to resign—but not for anything he said about the assassination attempt. Instead, Trump lambasted the FBI director for claiming that he found his interactions with President Biden “uneventful and unremarkable.”
- JD Vance breaks polling records in the worst way - July 25, 2024
- Donald Trump’s Losing Election Poll for First Time in Over a Month - July 25, 2024
- FBI Is Not Fully Convinced Trump Was Struck by a Bullet - July 25, 2024
JD Vance breaks polling records in the worst way
Donald Trump’s Losing Election Poll for First Time in Over a Month
FBI Is Not Fully Convinced Trump Was Struck by a Bullet
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