Africa’s most populous nation (213 million people) goes to the polls this Saturday, February 25, and the next president will inherit an economy and a country on its knees. Double-digit inflation, miserable wages, cash and fuel shortages. In almost every way, Nigerians are poorer and less secure, their country is less integrated into the global economy and geopolitical scene than it was when President Muhammadu Buhari took office there is eight years old, elected on a promise to root out corruption and end Boko Haram attacks.
The economic recovery of the English-speaking giant, a country of 215 million inhabitants, 63% of whom are poor, is one of the major issues of the ballot, along with insecurity (jihadist rebellion, crime, separatist claims).
And yet, the main producer of black gold on the continent, Nigeria has immense natural resources, particularly in hydrocarbons. But the Covid-19 pandemic and the fallout from the war in Ukraine have brought its economy to its knees, already affected by violence that is paralyzing agriculture and trade in large parts of the country.
The smallest expense has become a headache. Inflation is hovering around 22%, and the national currency, the naira, continues to tumble against the dollar – currently 750 naira to the dollar on the black market, down from 200 in 2015. Nigerians spent around $14 billion a month. last year to power their generators to compensate for a decrepit grid.
To make matters worse, the country is facing a severe shortage of liquidity linked to a recent central bank reform, which gave Nigerians three months to return all their old banknotes, without putting the equivalent in new denominations back into circulation.
For weeks, the population has been struggling night and day to find species. Endless queues formed outside banks and exchange offices, and many ended up closing their doors, unable to keep up with demand. In several large cities, from Lagos (southwest) to Benin City (south) via Kano (north), widespread exasperation has led to riots.
In this context, we must add the explosion in the price of gasoline, which has almost doubled (330 naira per liter against 165 a few months ago) and is also scarce. In the past, Nigeria could rely on crude production to offset rising subsidy costs, but losses from oil theft have been so great that production almost halved between the first quarter of 2020 and last September. .
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, foreign direct investment in Nigeria’s oil and gas sector was just $2.5 million in the first half of last year, down from $208 million in 2014.
Although the country has returned to positive growth, at 3% last year, the recovery has not improved the living conditions of the majority. The unemployment rate is around 33% nationally – and even reaches 43% among young people. Nearly widespread corruption also has a deterrent effect on entrepreneurs. Nigeria is ranked 154 out of 180 in Transparency International’s latest Corruption Perceptions Index.
The favorites in the running for the presidential election, two former governors and a former vice-president, all boast of their long experience in politics and their business acumen, to make their voters hope for a better tomorrow. The candidate of the ruling party, the Congress of Progressives (APC), Bola Ahmed Tinubu, faces Atiku Abubakar of the main opposition party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and Peter Obi of the Labor Party (LP), an outsider whose growing popularity among young people took everyone by surprise.
But analysts remain very pessimistic about the short and medium term economic outlook. “The unfavorable operating environment in Nigeria, characterized among other things by inflationary pressures and low purchasing power, will continue to increase the level of poverty,” said Sola Oni of consultancy Sofunix Investment.
According to experts, the next leader will have to implement shock reforms such as the reduction of gasoline subsidies, or the removal of import restrictions in order to succeed in changing the trajectory of the country.
If nothing is done, one of the phenomena that will gain momentum will be the flight of the country’s elites, through “japa”, that is to say, fleeing, “running around in the Yoruba language. While Nigeria is one of the most dynamic countries on the African continent thanks to its youth who excel in new technologies and creative industries, the severe economic crisis, corruption and insecurity push many Nigerians belonging to the average to want to leave their country in the hope of finding a better future in Europe or North America.
According to the UN, the number of international migrants from Nigeria in 2020 was 1.7 million, up from 990,000 ten years earlier. The “japa” movement – born in the 1970s amid coups and the economic crisis – has been enjoying a new wave for two years after the bloody repression in October 2020 of a movement against police violence, which traumatized part of the population, especially young people. Today, asking a Nigerian “what are his japa plans?” has become as common a phrase as asking him questions about his work or his health.
