Hardship, insecurity cloud Nigeria president's first year in office
30 أيار 2024 20:33
Nigerian Josephine Akiga looks around her empty restaurant in Abuja, where a sole customer sits eating, longing for the days when the place was filled with people.
Business has been so tough since President Bola Tinubu took office a year ago that she sometimes lets customers pay what they have for a meal just to keep business ticking along.
"When ... you have not sold anything since morning, it's better to have that money than to allow the person to go," said Akiga. "So you just ask the person to sit and then give him food for the money he has."
Since taking office in May last year, Tinubu has implemented reforms including slashing fuel and electricity subsidies and devaluing the naira currency twice to try to increase investment and boost output.
He says the policies are necessary to put Nigeria on a long-term growth path.
But the economy is growing well short of the 6% annual expansion targeted by Tinubu, while the reforms have driven inflation to a 28-year high, worsening a cost-of-living crisis.
Analysts say economic hardship is also fuelling crime which in turn is hurting people's livelihoods.
Bismarck Rewane, a prominent economic analyst who was appointed to Tinubu's economic council in March, agreed with the need for economic reforms but said more attention should have been paid to their implementation.
"The reforms came too quickly but there was no concrete plan to deal with the impact these reforms would have on the people," he said.
The end of the fuel subsidy, which for decades made petrol very cheap for Nigerians, has hit people particularly hard.
Petrol is widely used in the country to power not only cars but also generators for small businesses and homes.
Anthony Idowu, a 47-year-old bank employee, said the cost of filling his car had nearly quadrupled to 36,000 naira ($30) since the petrol subsidy was removed last year.
He now runs his petrol generator at home for only four hours a day to save money even if it means sleeping without a fan in the sweltering heat of Lagos, he said.
Business has been so tough since President Bola Tinubu took office a year ago that she sometimes lets customers pay what they have for a meal just to keep business ticking along.
"When ... you have not sold anything since morning, it's better to have that money than to allow the person to go," said Akiga. "So you just ask the person to sit and then give him food for the money he has."
Since taking office in May last year, Tinubu has implemented reforms including slashing fuel and electricity subsidies and devaluing the naira currency twice to try to increase investment and boost output.
He says the policies are necessary to put Nigeria on a long-term growth path.
But the economy is growing well short of the 6% annual expansion targeted by Tinubu, while the reforms have driven inflation to a 28-year high, worsening a cost-of-living crisis.
Analysts say economic hardship is also fuelling crime which in turn is hurting people's livelihoods.
Bismarck Rewane, a prominent economic analyst who was appointed to Tinubu's economic council in March, agreed with the need for economic reforms but said more attention should have been paid to their implementation.
"The reforms came too quickly but there was no concrete plan to deal with the impact these reforms would have on the people," he said.
The end of the fuel subsidy, which for decades made petrol very cheap for Nigerians, has hit people particularly hard.
Petrol is widely used in the country to power not only cars but also generators for small businesses and homes.
Anthony Idowu, a 47-year-old bank employee, said the cost of filling his car had nearly quadrupled to 36,000 naira ($30) since the petrol subsidy was removed last year.
He now runs his petrol generator at home for only four hours a day to save money even if it means sleeping without a fan in the sweltering heat of Lagos, he said.