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Nigeria’s president called for an end to nationwide protests over the cost of living crisis, dismissing demonstrators’ demands for the restoration of fuel subsidies and other measures after four days of unrest in which a dozen people have died.
In a televised address on Sunday, his first comments since protests began last week, Bola Tinubu appealed for dialogue but defended a “painful yet necessary decision to remove fuel subsidies and abolish multiple foreign exchange systems which had constituted a noose around the economic jugular of our nation”.
“My dear Nigerians, especially our youth, I have heard you loud and clear,” Tinubu said. “I understand the pain and frustration that drive these protests, and I want to assure you that our government is committed to listening and addressing the concerns of our citizens.”
The president urged the protesters to suspend their action to “create room for dialogue, which I have always acceded to at the slightest opportunity”, pointing to previously announced policies, including a student loan programme, which he insists will alleviate the plight of Nigerians.
Demonstrators last week took to the streets of Nigeria’s biggest cities, including the capital Abuja and economic hub Lagos. They are demanding government action to tackle the worst economic conditions in Nigeria in three decades, with inflation higher than 34 per cent and food costs climbing even faster.
Rights group Amnesty International said 13 people were killed by security forces on the first day of protests on August 1. The police claimed seven had died, including four from an explosive device in Borno, in the north-east of the country.
There have been protests each day since then. Police fired tear gas at demonstrators and journalists covering the protests in Abuja on Saturday. The organisers have planned 10 days of demonstrations.
Tinubu, who took office last year, partially eliminated costly fuel subsidies that enabled Nigerians to pay some of the lowest prices worldwide for petrol.
He also removed a currency peg that had overvalued the naira and cut electricity subsidies as part of market-friendly reforms to revitalise a moribund economy. But these measures have also fed inflation.
The naira has lost 70 per cent of its value against the US dollar in the past year following two devaluations.
Protesters are calling for a reversal of some of these policies.
One protester who showed up at a Lagos march with an empty pot in an image that has since gone viral told a local television channel that she was protesting because “things are too hard . . . the government should have mercy on us”.
Tinubu said in his address on Sunday that the economy was “recovering” as a result of his intervention and that the economy was previously “anaemic” because of subsidy “misalignments” that had stunted growth.
