Nigeria Tightens Security in Capital Before National Protests
(Bloomberg) -- Nigeria deployed security forces in the capital, Abuja, on the eve of nationwide protests over high prices of food and fuel that have exacerbated a cost-of-living crisis in Africa’s most-populous nation.
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Demonstration organizers — whose social-media campaign echoes recent protests that turned deadly in Kenya — are campaigning against government policies that have driven inflation to a near three-decade high, in a country where 40% of its more than 200 million people live in extreme poverty.
They also want the government to reinstate fuel subsidies partially lifted in May 2023, and state officials to send their children to public schools. Organizers are calling for daily protests until Aug. 10.
An online campaign mobilizing the protests, tagged #EndBadGovernance, echoed the #EndSars demonstrations in Nigeria in 2020 that were initially aimed at the police and morphed into demands to end bad governance.
Soldiers and police occupied Eagle Square in Abuja, venue of the planned demonstration, as well as other locations on the outskirts of the city. Last week, Nigeria’s security services warned they will prevent violence, while stating that peaceful protests are a democratic right of citizens.
On Saturday, the government ordered tightened security at the country’s border to stop “unscrupulous foreign elements from entering the country for any sinister motive,” according to a statement from the Nigeria Immigration Service.
The government has repeatedly attempted to defuse calls for the nationwide protest, with President Bola Tinubu warning last week that “we do not want to turn Nigeria to Sudan.” Thousands of people have died and millions of others have been displaced since a civil war began in Sudan in April last year.
Officials made another appeal on Wednesday, asking demonstrators to call off the protest, saying that the government is doing everything it can to end persistent inflation in the country.
To cushion against the effects of rapid price growth, Tinubu has more than doubled the monthly minimum wage to 70,000 naira ($40) from 30,000 naira, distributed grains and halted tariffs on food imports for six months.
But those are not enough, said Cheta Nwanze, partner at Lagos-based research firm SBM Intelligence.
“The previous minimum wage was just enough for a pot of food for a family of five,” he said. “The new minimum wage is just enough for three meals in a month.”
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