Nigeria: Round-the-clock curfew in Adamawa after looting
July 31, 2023
Nigeria's Adamawa State Governor Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri declared a round-the-clock curfew, effective immediately, on Sunday. It was not entirely clear for how long the curfew would apply.
This followed widespread looting of food stores in the state capital, Yola.
Umaru Fintiri's spokesman said the governor of the northeastern Nigerian state declared the curfew "due to escalating violence by hoodlums attacking people and businesses."
A police spokesman said that officers had been deployed to enforce the stay-at-home order for anyone not on what are deemed to be essential duties.
What led to this?
Hundreds of residents earlier in the week broke into public and private warehouses storing grains and other commodities and carted them away.
Videos posted online even showed looters clearing out a warehouse belonging to the Nigerian Emergency Management Agency (MENA), grabbing sacks of grain, cartons of pasta and other goods.
Although Nigeria is one of Africa's most rapidly developing economies, around half its population still live on less than the equivalent of $2 a day.
Extremely sharp recent fuel price increases, and less severe but still considerable food price increases have put pressure on the general public in the first months after President Bola Tinubu took office earlier this year.
Why have food and fuel prices risen sharply?
Two major economic policy decisions taken by Tinubu soon after winning elections have proven unpopular in some quarters in Nigeria.
Tinubu ended a fuel subsidy regime soon after taking office, and also removed currency restrictions, leading to the naira's value falling internationally.
The fuel subsidy stop led to extremely severe price rises of up to 400%.
Meanwhile, the fall of the naira's value reduced Nigeria's relative purchasing power, leading to more moderate but still steep increases in the costs of imported foodstuffs.
In the northeast of the country, this food insecurity is exacerbated by the difficult security situation, as government forces battle Islamist insurgents in the region in a conflict that has displaced many local residents.
Environmentalists had welcomed fuel move
Although contentious at home, Tinubu ending fuel subsidies actually aligns with longstanding calls from climate activists and NGOs the world over.
They argue that fuel subsidies, common in the developing world, are highly counterproductive policies, taking the much-needed funds of poorer governments away from other potentially more beneficial climate- and power-related investment — such as building up renewable energy capacity.
They also argue that these policies, although usually marketed as relief for the poor, tend to actually be a carrot offered by politicians in the developing world to more affluent, politically engaged voters with enough money for their own cars or motorbikes and so forth.
Adamawa the base of a Tinubu challenger
The conservative Muslim northeastern state of Adamawa is home to Atiku Abubakar, one of the losing candidates who is challenging the validity of Tinubu's election victory in a February vote.
Abubakar finished second overall according to the official results, securing 29% of the vote but also falling nearly 2 million votes short of Tinubu's 36.6% total.
Turnout in Africa's most populous country, with some 93.5 million eligible voters, was extremely low, at 26.71% — far less than in the last presidential election in 2019.
Nigeria has a history of electoral challenges. Every presidential election since the country's 1999 return to democracy has faced legal challenges, but to date, no such challenge has altered a result.
msh/jsi (AFP, Reuters)