Hunger riots: What do rising food prices mean for Nigerians?

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In Nigeria, skyrocketing food prices led to deadly protests this month. But what does hunger look like in Africa’s most populous country?

• Hungry Nigerians protest against rising prices
• Food price inflation highest in Africa
• Conflicts and climate change exacerbate food insecurity

Bola Adeshiyan last ate 16 hours ago and is hungry. To distract herself from the stomach pain, she leaves her tiny one-room apartment and walks through the busy streets of her neighborhood in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital.

After her return, the 55-year-old drinks some water and makes herself comfortable. Later in the day, she can pick up leftover beans and unsold bread on credit from a grocer.

She will share the meal with her three grandchildren – Dara, Ayinke and Oba – who also haven’t eaten since sharing five biscuits in the morning. She and her mother Esther also live in the one-room apartment.

Adeshiyan earns 10,000 naira ($6.49) a week as a cook, but that is not enough to cover her family’s weekly grocery shopping.

“I can’t remember the last time we had dinner in this house this year. If they get a cassava meal every day, it’s a good day,” Adeshiyan told Context.

The Adeshiyans are among millions of families in Nigeria who are going to bed hungry as the country battles its highest-ever inflation, the result of sweeping economic reforms that have driven up prices in Africa’s most populous country.

After taking office in May last year, President Bola Tinubu cut fuel and electricity subsidies and devalued the naira against the dollar to attract investment and save money for infrastructure projects.

With petrol prices tripling, the naira collapsing against the dollar and food prices soaring, Tinubu was forced to open the national grain reserves to bring the situation under control by offering free food to hungry families.

Today, staple foods such as rice, beans and bread have become luxuries. Economic hardship sparked nationwide protests this month, and at least 22 people were killed in clashes with police, according to Amnesty International.

Esther told Context that she spends half of the 60,000 naira she earns each month cleaning toilets at a school in the affluent suburb of Lekki on transport costs, which have tripled since the price of petrol rose from 165 naira per litre to 600 naira following subsidy cuts.

She spends the rest on food for her children. But that’s not enough.

Adeshiyan was also unable to pay his electricity bills as tariffs had tripled.

“After buying a can of rice, a can of beans and some tomatoes, all we need to do is buy gas for cooking. We have to eat before I can recharge the electricity,” she said in her darkened apartment.

Conflicts and climate shocks exacerbate the crisis

The crisis triggered by economic reforms has been exacerbated by persistent attacks by armed gangs on farms in the food-producing northern states. Elsewhere, floods and droughts caused by climate change have destroyed crops, driven up prices and pushed millions into hunger.

“The economic reforms have severely affected the ability of low-income people to eat adequately. People have been priced out of the market like I have never seen before,” said David Stevenson, head of the UN World Food Programme in Nigeria.

Of the 55 million people facing food insecurity in West Africa this year, 32 million live in Nigeria., In 2023, the number of new infections is expected to reach 25 million, Stevenson said.

“National food inflation (in Nigeria) is 40 percent annually. This is the highest in over 30 years and currently the highest food inflation in Africa,” he said.

During protests this month, demonstrators called on Tinubu to reinstate subsidies on petrol and electricity, but the president urged protesters to be patient and wait for his reforms to bear fruit.

On August 4, he said the government would increase spending on infrastructure projects, launch a loan program for university students and was building thousands of housing units in all 36 states.

Adeshiyan did not participate in the protests in Lagos because she feared they would turn violent, but many of her neighbors did.

“While I complain that there is no food, they complain, and you can see that we have lost hope,” she said, pointing to the empty food stalls on both sides of her street.

Today, their grandchildren know that they don’t have to count on three meals a day.

When the children cry out for meat and refuse to eat the smoked cowhide – a tough but cheaper alternative – that she serves with rice on Sundays, she feels she can offer them little comfort.

“I tell them that Nigeria is not what it used to be. I tell them that they should be lucky to have a meal in their bellies at all.”

(Reporting by Bukola Adebayo @BUKAdebayo; Editing by Clar Ni Chonghaile.)