Lagos, Nigeria – Armed with a protest sign, 20-year-old Samuel Adeleke joined a crowd of angry Nigerians gathered in Ikeja, the heart of Nigeria’s commercial capital Lagos, on Thursday morning.
Passing through nearby residential areas, the few hundred protesters raised placards decrying the high cost of food and rising cost of living, while pumping their fists in the air and chanting songs to urge more people to join them.
By the time they arrived in Ojota, the area 7.5km away where demonstrators were converging for the first of a planned 10-day-long protest, the number of demonstrators had swelled to a couple of thousand.
Tens of thousands of people across Africa’s most populous country are participating in the protests under the banner of #EndBadGovernanceInNigeria. Organisers have called for days of street demonstrations beginning on August 1 to protest against bad governance, corruption and the increasing cost of living that has left millions of Nigerians reeling. In total, protesters have 19 demands.
In parts of the country, such as the northern Kano and Yobe states, authorities imposed a curfew as some protesters attacked vehicles, burning them. In capital Abuja, the police fired back tear gas shells to disperse protesters, and gunshots were heard. By Friday morning, rights group Amnesty International’s Nigeria head said at least 13 protesters had been killed, and more than 300 arrested.
Adeleke, a law student at the University of Lagos (Unilag), went out to register his displeasure with the government, which he said has put his education under threat because of its policies.
“People [in government] that got free education came into power and withdrew free education,” he told Al Jazeera, urging the government to “reverse school fees and make the nation habitable for students”.
Unilag increased university tuition fees while simultaneously instituting a rule that forbids students from doing business from their hostels, he said, which has left already vulnerable young people without sources of much-needed income.
“Do they want them to drop out?” asked Adeleke, whose school recently raised fees by several thousand naira following the removal of a government subsidy.
In May 2023, Bola Tinubu became president of Nigeria. In the year since, Nigerians have grappled with unprecedented economic hardships owing to his decision to remove a fuel subsidy, which was introduced in the 1970s to keep petrol affordable and help the naira increase in value.
Although experts say Tinubu’s move will help rejuvenate Nigeria’s economy, it has had a biting effect on ordinary citizens whose disposable income has eroded as a result.
Food inflation in Nigeria also stands at 40 percent, the highest in nearly three decades, while unemployment maintains an upward posture, according to the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics. But economic insecurity is not the only challenge as kidnappings, terrorism and banditry pervades the country, including the capital city, Abuja.
Rising insecurity has affected protesters like Jibril Suleiman, a native of the Gwoza area in Maiduguri in Borno State – a stronghold of the armed group Boko Haram. Suleiman said he could not go home and was concerned about the suffering of his kinsmen.
“I want Nigeria to live in peace. Because of insecurity, people are dying every day in my village. People are dying because of hunger, our sisters have turned to Ashewo [Yoruba for sex worker] because of hunger. That is why we have come out here to fight for our rights,” the logistics worker told Al Jazeera.
Basic commodities have become a luxury that is out of the grasp of many Nigerians; and unexplained fuel scarcities happen every other week even as Nigeria is one of the biggest oil exporting countries. Petrol sold at 1,300 naira ($0.78) per litre this week, up from 580 naira ($0.35) earlier this month. The naira has also maintained a downward slope despite government attempts to prop it up through policies and by forceful means.
It is particularly challenging for students, many of whom struggle to pay their school fees or buy textbooks. The removal of an electricity subsidy for the highest power users in February also made matters worse. Because universities are typically large power consumers, some institutions have been unable to afford their high electricity bills, and have been disconnected from the national grid – leaving students having to find ways to work in the dark.
Last month, students at the University of Ibadan in Oyo State took to the streets to vent their frustrations, while those at the University of Ilorin in Kwara State, where student dissent is outlawed, had to write their exams without any electricity to study.
The government’s tertiary education loan scheme has meanwhile been of little help to many at the brink of dropping out due to the complex requirements needed to access it.
Basket of grievances
Away from the protest grounds on Thursday, the characteristic buzz of Lagos traffic waned – the streets were scant as many shops and businesses shut in anticipation of violence. Yet the protests were not as big as anticipated as millions of Lagosians stayed home, many to avoid getting hurt in the event of violence.
Still, armed police were visible across the city – even in places like Yaba, kilometres away from the protest zones where no demonstrations were held. Passersby chanted “no violence” at military or police convoys they passed so they’d not be triggered to shoot.
When a helicopter hovered above, the crowd, imagining it was President Tinubu or an emissary flying overhead, shouted “thief” and waved their fingers in the air in an insulting manner.
The protests are a byproduct of growing disenchantment with a poorly run administration that came to power with a fragile electoral mandate, according to Adewunmi Emowura, the global policy leader at Abuja-based public strategy firm, Gatefield.
“It’s a basket of grievances: the chronic hunger, high unemployment, the lack of accountability from a tone-deaf government that has imposed a crippling austerity programme on citizens while the ruling class live in luxury,” he said.
The muted protest atmosphere seen in Lagos was not mirrored across the country. In Abuja, protests turned violent; in Kano, curfews were declared; and about 25 people were arrested in Kaduna. Children joined the demonstrations in Taraba and Gombe State, where protesters pelted the government house with stones.
Experts said the use of force and the clampdown on constitutional freedom shows the government’s lack of legitimacy and it could potentially lead to further escalation and anarchy.
“This just shows a government that has failed to properly address the situation and their role in law and order rather than simply regime protection,” said Afolabi Adekaiyaoja, a research analyst at the Abuja-based Centre for Democracy and Development,
Food insecurity and hardships
Adeola Babatunde, who just gave birth three months ago, is among those worst hit by the dire economic situation in Lagos. Her shop at Ketu market, where she sells soap, biscuits and soda, has been depleting for the last few months; this has spelled untold hardship for her family, who she struggles to feed.
Bemoaning the rising costs of basics, the mother-of-four said: “I am here to let the government know that there is something serious happening in this Nigeria. The whole place is bad, we work so hard yet go home with so little.”
Like Babatunde, Buchi Odikanwa, an IT salesman, said his family of six has been struggling since the change in government because rent, utility bills and other family expenses leave him with nothing at the end of the month.
“The gap is so wide and you can’t tell me to manage and endure [while] you are buying a private jet and yacht, and you are spending billions to renovate a residence where one man will live while we have people in IDP [internally displaced people] camps who can barely sleep,” the father of four said, referring to the newly renovated vice president’s residence.
“We are here because the Nigerian irony needs to be corrected.”
In the past month, there have been pockets of protests by hungry people as well as attacks on food trucks and warehouses, as poverty levels increase, disposable income erodes and hunger rises.
These struggles are not unique to Nigeria. The protests come following similar recent demonstrations sweeping other African countries, including Kenya and Uganda. Protest action is also likely in Ghana due to corruption and the high cost of living, despite a court ban.
In Nigeria, the hardships are now unbearable for many – as people seek extra work shifts and night jobs, and more begin to beg for alms. The cost of staples has also doubled and tripled, including bread and the local meal, jollof rice, which now costs 20,274 naira ($12.21) up from 16,955 naira ($10.21) in June for an average family of five, according to Lagos-based intelligence firm SBM.
The food crisis shows no sign of slowing down, SBM Intelligence said, and it has given fodder to crime and exacerbated malnutrition and food insecurity – Nigeria has the highest number of food insecure people in the world at 31.8 million, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.
Government divorced from reality
Nigeria’s government has tried to push back against the protests in the weeks leading up to its start. Tinubu said last week that the protests could degenerate into violence and set the country backwards.
The secret service said it warned citizens not to partake in the demonstrations as it had “confirmed a sinister plan by some elements to infiltrate the protest and use it to cause chaos and extreme violence in the land”, to force a regime change. A defence spokesperson also warned against a Kenya-esque protest that could turn deadly.
Experts said the government’s action is informed by its determination to stop the protests from becoming as big as the 2012 Occupy Nigeria protest sparked by a fuel subsidy removal by then-President Goodluck Jonathan, and the 2020 #EndSARS protests against the notorious police unit, which routinely harassed, robbed and killed citizens.
The government met with key traditional leaders to appease citizens to give the Tinubu administration more time to deliver on its electoral promises. This week it tried to dissuade the protest by raising the minimum wage from 30,000 naira to 70,000 naira. It also advertised job opportunities in the country’s oil company and grants worth billions of naira to Nigerian youth.
But that has not moved the needle.
Nigerians are convinced that the government is divorced from reality and shows no signs of empathy as it has not made any serious changes in government to accommodate the growing challenges. The country has a bloated cabinet, with hundreds of highly paid people employed to do the same jobs, citizens complain. Accusations of corruption also hang over government officials and ruling party members, who are accused of insensitive spending and benefitting unfairly from state opportunities.
“Go to the local governments, you cannot get basic amenities there if you don’t have an APC [membership] card,” said Babatunde, who claimed that her niece was denied a spot to take the state school leaving exam because she did not have the ruling party’s membership card.
A series of government actions, like demolishing the Landmark Centre, an entertainment hotspot in Lagos, in favour of the construction of a coastal express road, which has now been suspended, has worsened the public’s perception of the government, which rode into office on the back of a disputed election pockmarked by claims of electoral malpractice and result rigging.
‘Those who are down fear no fall’
Three days ago, anti-protest advocates whose activities had until then largely dwelled on social media, took to the streets in Lagos and Abuja to demonstrate against the planned protests. Multiple people have since alleged that they are being sponsored by the state as part of the effort to stop citizens.
Some of the anti-protest advocates attended the demonstrations across the country on Thursday. In Lagos, they tried to intimidate protesters but were pushed back and eventually left. Allegedly paid thugs were also going around to intimidate protesters from coming out in Lagos, while also stoking the fires of fragile ethnic tensions between the Igbo and Yoruba that have lingered since the elections when some Igbo members were harassed when attempting to cast their votes.
“The divisions from last year’s elections are still rife. The issues that were prevalent have clearly not been addressed and it is a clear indication that the last year has not been anything to inspire confidence,” said Adekaiyaoja from the Centre for Democracy and Development.
Gatefield’s Emowura, meanwhile, said the intimidation tactics would not cripple the demonstrations because the government’s playbook is already known: from the failed attempt to co-opt purported protest leaders to infiltrating their ranks and the show-of-force and threats by state and non-state actors, including procuring illegitimate court orders from corrupt judges, to the extremes of physical violence.
“This protest feels different. It’s part of an ongoing wave of young Africans fighting for survival against an older and failed political class. As the saying goes: those who are down fear no fall. Nigerians are tired,” Emowura said.
For Adekaiyaoja, the protest is a reminder of the power of collective peoples movements and it should serve as a wake-up call to governments to be proactive and engage actively.
Yet, he doubts that will happen.
“These governments will simply see it as a sign to ensure more restrictions on future attempts,” he said.
In Lagos, Babatunde, who works in the beleaguered informal economy, hopes this protest can bring about serious improvements for her business to help improve the quality of life for her family.
“My business is ruining, I am in debt. We are not here to fight, they should just do something about this situation,” she said. “It is getting out of hand.”
