The Crisis in Global Economies Does Not Absolve Nigeria’s

Last Thursday, on account of months of extreme economic hardship, Nigerians across the country marched through the streets in droves to protest the current administration’s policies. The tagline “End Bad Governance” was the umbrella term under which the protesters leveled their demands against the government, one of which was that the fuel subsidy, which was discontinued last May, should be reinstated. Commenting on the protests, Dr Abdullahi Ganduje, the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, said that economic challenges are not unique to Nigeria. Ganduje was echoing President Bola Tinubu who, in June, said that Nigeria was not the only country dealing with poverty. 

There is a popular question asked by Nigerian authority figures to children, “If your friends are putting their hands into fire, will you also put your hand?” It is posed in different scenarios, but more often when a child is keen on getting approval for something their friend is freely doing. The answer to it, although said begrudgingly, is always “no,” because a child can recognize the message being passed across, which is either the importance of independent thinking or that everybody’s situation is unique. 

The question can also be applied to the country’s current economic landscape, or at least the response of the political class. When Nigerians complain about the torrid state of the country, they are told by politicians that other countries are also going through hard times. 

A crucial detail often ignored by these politicians is that the country has always been enduring hard times. Before the problems of the country came to a tipping point in the current administration, it had been brewing in different sectors of the country in the past few decades. Insecurity, for example, has been a constant issue. The Chibok school girls, whose abduction shook the world eleven years ago, have not all been rescued from captivity. North-Eastern Nigeria has been in a constant state of unrest due to attacks by Boko Haram, non-state armed groups, and clashes between herders and farmers which has led to an alarming rate of internally displaced people (IDP). Nigeria was ranked 5th for the highest number of IDPs  in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2023, and globally , it was ranked 9th.In addition to this, the Council on Foreign Relations reports that between 2011 to 2023, 43,228 people have been killed by Boko Haram. 

And in the Niger Delta, conflict over crude oil production has resulted in decades of tumult, causing the death of thousands and environmental degradation. There have been at least 16,822 incidents of oil spills in the region, 11,138 reportedly caused by theft and sabotage, 1,052 due to corrosion, and 1,766 due to equipment failure from April 2006 to May 2024. The pollution caused by these spills has turned the once fertile land, and rivers filled with fish, poisonous. Unfortunately, not much has changed in the region despite complaints from inhabitants. While the rest of the country does not suffer the extent of violence and health hazards as the regions mentioned above, they still experience an alarming rate of kidnappings, armed robbery and theft. 

The tipping point of the past year has been the economic hardship affecting every citizen of the country. Nigerians are experiencing the highest inflation rate in the country’s history, as such the cost of living is very high, prices of food and fuel have skyrocketed and the value of the naira has plummeted.  

Although the sentiments are true that the global economy is also facing hardships, it does not absolve the problems Nigeria is facing. James Ola-Adisa, financial analyst at Chapel Hill Denham, explained that largely policies like the removal of fuel subsidy are good policies that would have a positive long-term effect, but the timing coinciding with a global tightness had made it even more unbearable. He said, “Typically when we hit this kind of roadblock where we have massive devaluations or high inflation, sometimes it coincides with periods where the global economy is rosy.” Unfortunately, for Nigeria, the global economy is currently not rosy. “The interest rates in the US are currently high, if they were low, that would have boosted the Eurobond markets for instance, and we would just get some dollars, pop it into our economy and the currency stabilizes for 2 or 3 years and then we get back to the same point.”  He continues, “We are now at a point where the challenges in Nigeria are affecting the economy seriously and we don’t have anyone to run to because everyone is also battling their own problems, so nobody is really out to help an emerging market like Nigeria.”

He also pointed out that despite the state of the global economy, the issues Nigeria faces are also a result of its doing. “If you put it in proper context you’ll find that the problems we are in, we put ourselves in it and you can’t then go around saying the global economy is bad and so that’s why Nigeria is going through this. It was always going to happen. It just happened at the same timeline with the global tightness.” 

The context of each country’s problems significantly differs and it will be remiss to dismiss valid concerns about Nigeria’s economy by comparing it to other countries. If the intention is to compare countries, perhaps holding Nigeria to a higher standard by comparing it to better economies might be less disingenuous.