Unemployment reaches 33% of the working population, inflation 17%, the statistics for February 2021 reflect in all their severity the serious economic crisis that Nigerians are going through. Africa’s largest economy – in terms of GDP – is facing several crises, food products are rising dangerously and extreme poverty is rising. Pandemic, agricultural crisis and oil rent decline, the picture is bleak and it should not be cleaned up soon.
In his priest on Sunday, March 7, the Archbishop of Abuja, Monsignor Kaigama, did not keep his word. Proclaims “the many beggars along the roads, the young unemployed and retired abandoned in poverty” and condemned the “lack of sincere efforts” on the part of the authorities. It is true that Nigeria is accumulating the worst evils in an Africa that sees the emergence of the “pangoline effect”, as the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs predicted last year, that is, a sudden increase in poverty and social unrest caused. of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Prices are rising
Nigeria, which experienced a recession in 2020, also saw prices rise. In February 2021, they were 17% more expensive than a year earlier. For food, the increase even reached 22%. There are several reasons for this inflation peak. They are due in part to President Buhari’s protectionist policies. This closed the borders for agricultural imports, even though the rice crops were reduced by the capricious weather.
The fall of the currency and the restrictions on the purchase of dollars made imports, especially fertilizers, more expensive. At the same time, the oil sector had a catastrophic year 2020, and it is all the more difficult to recover as underinvestment leads to a reduction in black gold extraction. 2021 may be the year for a return to growth, but more certainly the year of a leap into extreme poverty.
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