Nigeria’s economic woes also help explain a vertiginous rise in crime. More people were kidnapped in the first four months of this year than all of last year, according to Jose Luengo-Cabrera of the World Bank. This has added to worsening violence around three flashpoints: the jihadists of Boko Haram in the north-east; a long-standing conflict between farmers and cattle-herders across central Nigeria; and fighting between government forces and Igbo separatists in the south-east.
Instead, the government of President Muhammadu Buhari has restricted imports in an effort to prop up the currency, which he sees as a measure of Nigeria’s strength. In an attempt to conserve dollars, the central bank has banned those intending to import almost 50 items from buying foreign currency. Last month wheat and sugar were added to the list. In 2019 Mr Buhari closed Nigeria’s land borders to goods to stop smugglers undermining local producers. Both moves have fuelled food-price inflation.
The government may slowly be changing its tune. Bismarck Rewane, an economist who is also on the president’s council of economic advisers, says that “the futility of a Robinson Crusoe economy became very clear for everybody”. The government is starting to pay more attention to exporters, he claims, pointing to the partial reopening of land borders for goods in December and Nigeria’s signing of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement in 2019.
Electricity blackouts are maddeningly frequent. Roads are often poor and ports clogged up. Moving a container 20km from the port of Lagos to the city can cost $4,000, almost as much as shipping it 12,000km from China. Nigeria ranks 131st out of 190 countries on the World Bank’s ease-of-doing-business index. Although some industries, such as information technology, are growing, this is “in spite of the government”, says Tayo Oviosu of Paga, a mobile-payments company.
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