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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.
The crash site of the helicopter carrying Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi has been located, Iranian state news agency IRNA and semi-official news outlet ISNA reported on Monday.
The helicopter crashed in a remote part of the country on Sunday.
As president of Iran, Raisi is the second most powerful individual in the Islamic Republic’s political structure after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini. He became president in a historically uncompetitive election in 2021, and he has overseen a period of intensified repression of dissent in a nation convulsed by youth-led protests against religious clerical rule.
The crash comes at a fraught moment in the Middle East, with war raging in Gaza and weeks after Iran launched a drone-and-missile attack on Israel in response to a deadly strike on its diplomatic compound in Damascus.
As the sun rose Monday, Raisi and the others on board remained missing more than 12 hours after the likely crash, with Turkish drone footage suggesting the helicopter went down in the mountains. Rescuers rushed to the site.
The incident comes as Iran under Raisi and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei launched an unprecedented drone-and-missile attack on Israel last month and has enriched uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels.
Iran has also faced years of mass protests against its Shiite theocracy over an ailing economy and women’s rights — making the moment that much more sensitive for Tehran and the future of the country as the Israel-Hamas war inflames the wider Middle East.
Raisi was traveling in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province. State TV said what it called a “hard landing” happened near Jolfa, a city on the border with the nation of Azerbaijan, some 600 kilometers (375 miles) northwest of the Iranian capital, Tehran. Later, state TV put it farther east near the village of Uzi, but details remained contradictory.
Traveling with Raisi were Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, the governor of Iran’s East Azerbaijan province and other officials and bodyguards, the state-run IRNA news agency reported. One local government official used the word “crash,” but others referred to either a “hard landing” or an “incident.”
Neither IRNA nor state TV offered any information on Raisi’s condition in the hours afterward.
Early Monday morning, Turkish authorities released what they described as drone footage showing what appeared to be a fire in the wilderness that they “suspected to be wreckage of helicopter.” The coordinates listed in the footage put the fire some 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of the Azerbaijan-Iranian border on the side of a steep mountain.
News
‘I’ll bring my plane… I plan on keeping it for another four years’ – Biden on second debate with Trump
President Biden and former President Trump agreed to hold a second debate Sept. 10 hosted by ABC News.
The two candidates had already accepted an invitation earlier Wednesday to attend a CNN debate on June 27, and both confirmed later in the day on social media that they plan to attend the ABC debate in September.
“I’ve also received and accepted an invitation to a debate hosted by ABC on Tuesday, September 10th,” Biden posted on the social platform X. “Trump says he’ll arrange his own transportation. I’ll bring my plane, too. I plan on keeping it for another four years.”
Biden, of course, is referring to the presidential jet, Air Force One.
“It is my great honor to accept the CNN Debate against Crooked Joe Biden, the WORST PRESIDENT in the History of the United States and a true Threat to Democracy, on June 27th,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “Likewise, I accept the ABC News Debate against Crooked Joe on September 10th.”
It marked a whirlwind few hours that started with Biden’s campaign publicly proposing two deabtes in June and September and ended with both candidates agreeing to a date and host.
ABC News had planned to host a GOP primary debate in New Hampshire, but it was canceled after Trump and Nikki Haley said they would not attend. Martha Raddatz of ABC co-moderated one of the 2016 presidential debates; the network did not host a debate in 2020.
The candidates have chosen to go around the Commission on Presidential Debates, the organization that has arranged the showdowns dating back to 1988.
Biden campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon suggested working with outlets that hosted GOP primary debates in 2016 and Democratic primary debates in 2020 to avoid any perceptions of bias.
ABUJA, NIGERIA — Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Women Affairs says it is investigating a plan by a lawmaker in central Niger state to marry off some 100 female orphans of unknown ages later this month.
Speaker of the Niger State Assembly Abdulmalik Sarkin-Daji announced the mass wedding last week but called off the ceremony following widespread outrage.
Minister of Women Affairs Uju Kennedy-Ohanenye, speaking to journalists in Abuja on Tuesday, condemned the plans.
Kennedy-Ohanenye said she had petitioned the police and filed a lawsuit to stop the marriages pending an investigation to ascertain the age of the orphans and whether they consented to the marriages.
“This is totally unacceptable by the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs and by the government” of Nigeria, she said.
Last week, Sarkin-Daji announced his support for the mass wedding of the orphans, whose relatives were killed during attacks by armed bandits. He said it was part of his support to his constituents following an appeal for wedding funding by local traditional and religious leaders.
The mass wedding had been scheduled for May 24.
“That support I intend to give for the marriage of those orphans, I’m withdrawing it,” he said. “The parents can have the support [money], if they wish, let them go ahead and marry them off. As it is right now, I’m not threatened by the action of the minister.”
Despite national laws prohibiting it, forced or arranged marriage is a common phenomenon in Nigeria, especially among rural communities in the predominantly Muslim north, where religious and cultural norms such as polygamy favor the practice.
Poor families often use forced marriage to ease financial pressure, and the European Union Agency for Asylum says girls who refuse could face repercussions such as neglect, ostracism, physical assault and rape.
Raquel Kasham Daniel escaped being married off as a teenager when her father died and now runs a nonprofit helping children, especially less-privileged girls, get a formal education for free.
She said the ability of women to avoid forced marriage in Nigeria depends on their income and education.
“I was 16 when I lost my dad and I was almost married off, but then I ran away from home. And that gave me the opportunity to complete my education, and now I have a better life,” Daniel said.
“So, the reason why I prioritize education is to make sure that other girls have access to quality schooling so that it will help them make informed decisions about their lives. Education not only increases our awareness as girls about our rights but also enhances our prospects for higher income earning,” she said.
Thirty percent of girls in Nigeria are married before they turn 18, according to Girls Not Brides, a global network of more than 1,400 civil society groups working to end child marriage.
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