Protests spread in Nigeria over high food cost, inflation

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria

Thousands of workers, traders, rights activists, and students marched through the streets of major cities in Nigeria on Tuesday, protesting the high cost of food, medicine, cooking gas, and essential commodities.

Nigeria Workers' Union declared two-day nationwide protests starting from Feb. 27, demanding the government ease economic stress triggered by the removal of the petrol subsidy.

Joe Ajaero, president of the Nigeria Labour Congress, said the government attempted to prevent the nationwide protests but the union persisted.

Speaking with journalists at the protest venue in the capital Abuja, he said the government is not showing commitment to easing the economic hardship facing the citizens.

In Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial hub and Africa's largest city, protests were held at open spaces after the police sealed off the Labor Office and Abuja as well.

Dozens of anti-riot policemen also prevented protesters from marching on the streets in northeast Borno State.

“The police commissioner said they have a mandate to seal off our secretariat,” Yusuf Inuwa, head of the labor union in Borno, told Anadolu.

One of the protesters and head of the Senior Staff Association of Nigeria University in northeast Borno, Kyari Dunoma, lamented over the poor economy and inflation.

Prices of foods, transport, medicine, cooking gas, and other commodities skyrocketed since June last year after President Bola Tinubu announced the removal of subsidies on oil.

Inflation in the country rose to about 30% in January, the highest in 25 years, according to the monthly report by the Nigeria National Bureau of Statistics.