Market News

President Bola Tinubu says his plans will fix the myriad problems of Africa’s most populous country. But with rampant inflation forcing many citizens to forego basic necessities, they’re low on patience.

By Nduka Orjinmo and Monique Vanek

For much of the past half-century, Nigeria, with its vast population, cultural influence, entrepreneurial drive and abundant natural resources, had the potential to one day become Africa’s economic powerhouse.

But it couldn’t shake off the problems holding it back: an economy so hooked on oil production that job-creating industries outside of raw commodities are barely a rounding error in the nation’s export statistics; a country where more than nine-tenths of the employed work in the informal sector, and where the state is less a provider of public goods than a machine for distributing oil wealth as a form of political patronage. Nigeria lives up to its reputation as a nation of entrepreneurs, but often not by design: The government’s failure to provide for people’s basic needs means citizens must hustle in search of things as simple as water, electricity, education and security as best they can.