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Nigeria is facing its worst economic crisis in decades, with skyrocketing inflation, a national currency in free-fall and millions of people struggling to buy food. Only two years ago Africa\u2019s biggest economy, Nigeria is projected to drop to fourth place this year.<\/p>\n
The pain is widespread. Unions strike to protest salaries of around $20 a month. People die in stampedes, desperate for free sacks of rice. Hospitals are overrun with women wracked by spasms from calcium deficiencies.<\/p>\n
The crisis is largely believed to be rooted in two major changes implemented by a president elected 15 months ago<\/a>: the partial<\/a> removal of fuel subsidies and the floating of the currency, which together have caused major price rises.<\/p>\n A nation of entrepreneurs, Nigeria\u2019s more than 200 million citizens are skilled at managing in tough circumstances, without the services states usually provide. They generate<\/a> their own electricity<\/a> and source their own water. They take up arms and defend<\/a> their communities when the armed forces cannot. They negotiate with kidnappers<\/a> when family members are abducted.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n But right now, their resourcefulness is being stretched to the limit.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n On a recent morning in a corner of the biggest emergency room in northern Nigeria, three women were convulsing in painful spasms, unable to speak. Each year, the E.R. at Murtala Muhammed Specialist Hospital in Kano, Nigeria\u2019s second-largest city, received one or two cases of hypocalcemia caused by malnutrition, said Salisu Garba, a kindly health worker who hurried from bed to bed, ward to ward.<\/p>\n Now, with many unable to afford food, the hospital sees multiple cases every day.<\/p>\n Mr. Garba was sizing up the women\u2019s husbands. Which source of nutrition he recommended depended on what he thought they could afford. Baobab leaves or tiger nuts<\/a> for the poor; boiled-up bones for the slightly better off. He laughed at the suggestion that anyone could afford milk.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n More than 87 million people<\/a> in Nigeria, Africa\u2019s most populous country, live below the poverty line \u2014 the world\u2019s second-largest poor population after India, a country seven times its size. And punishing inflation means poverty rates are expected to rise still further this year and next, according to the World Bank.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Last week, unions shut down hospitals, courts, schools, airports and even the country\u2019s Parliament, striking in an attempt to force the government to increase the monthly salary of $20 it pays its lowest workers.<\/p>\n But over 92 percent<\/a> of working-age Nigerians are in the informal sector, where there are no wages, and no unions to fight for them.<\/p>\n For the Afolabi family in Ibadan, in southwestern Nigeria, the descent into poverty started in January with the loss of an electric tuk-tuk taxi.<\/p>\n Forced to sell the taxi to pay his wife\u2019s hospital bills after the difficult birth of their second child, Babatunde Afolabi turned to occasional construction work. It paid badly, but the family managed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cWe had no thoughts about starvation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n But then, he said, cassava \u2014 the cheapest staple in many parts of Nigeria \u2014 tripled in price.<\/p>\n All they can afford now, he said, is a few biscuits, a little bread, and for their 6-year-old, 20 peanuts a day.<\/p>\n Nigeria is a country heavily dependent on imported petroleum products, despite being a major oil producer. After years of underinvestment and mismanagement, its state refineries produce hardly any gasoline.<\/p>\n For decades, the national soundtrack has been the hum of small generators, fired up during daily power outages. Petroleum products move goods and people around the country.<\/p>\n Until recently, the government subsidized that petroleum, to the tune of billions of dollars a year.<\/p>\n Many Nigerians said the subsidy was the only useful contribution from a neglectful and predatory government. Successive presidents have pledged to remove the subsidy, which drains a hefty chunk of government revenue \u2014 and later backtracked fearing mass unrest.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Bola Tinubu, who was elected Nigeria\u2019s president<\/a> last year, initially followed through.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a necessary action for my country not to go bankrupt,\u201d Mr. Tinubu said in April, at a meeting of the World Economic Forum in Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n Instead, many Nigerians are going bankrupt \u2014 or working multiple jobs to stay afloat.<\/p>\n Mr. Garba, the hospital worker, used to be solidly middle class, even though 17 family members, including 12 children, depended on him.<\/p>\n After shifts at the hospital, where he is setting up the first statewide ambulance service in addition to working in the emergency room, for which he is paid $150 a month, he heads to the Red Cross. There he occasionally receives a $3.30 volunteer stipend for helping tackle a severe diphtheria outbreak<\/a>.<\/p>\n At night, he works at the pharmacy that he and a colleague set up. But few people have money for medicine anymore. He sells about $7 worth of medication per day.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Last year, Mr. Garba sold his car when the gas subsidies were removed, and now takes a tuk-tuk to work. Unable to power the generator, he reads medicine labels at the pharmacy by the light of a small solar lantern. He can only afford to buy rice and cassava in small quantities.<\/p>\n Life under the previous government was very expensive, he said, but nothing like today.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s very, very bad,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n It\u2019s gotten so dire that there have been several deadly stampedes for free or discounted rice distributed by the government \u2014 including one in March at a university in the central state of Nasarawa where seven students were killed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mr. Tinubu promised to create a million jobs<\/a> and quadruple the size of the economy<\/a> within a decade, but has not said how. The International Monetary Fund said last month the state has started subsidizing fuel and electricity again \u2014 though the government has not acknowledged this.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThere\u2019s still very little clarity \u2014 if any \u2014 on where the economy is headed, what the priorities are,\u201d said Zainab Usman, a political economist and director of the Africa Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.<\/p>\n A spate of new crypto-mining games that promise to generate income the more the user plays has people across Nigeria spending all day tapping on their smartphone screens, desperate to earn a few dollars.<\/p>\n People tap as they pray, in mosques and churches. Children tap under desks at school. Mourners tap at funerals.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n There\u2019s no guarantee any of them will ever benefit from the hours they put in mindlessly tapping.<\/p>\n Then again, they can\u2019t count on the national currency, the naira.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The government has twice devalued the naira in the past year, trying to enable it to float more freely and attract foreign investment. The upshot: It\u2019s lost nearly 70 percent of its value against the dollar.<\/p>\n Nigeria cannot produce enough food for its growing population; food imports rise 11 percent annually<\/a>. The currency devaluation caused those imports \u2014 already expensive because of high tariffs<\/a> \u2014 to explode in price.<\/p>\n Nigerians can become paupers almost overnight. So they\u2019re searching for anything that might hold its value \u2014 or ideally, get them rich.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople are looking for me everywhere,\u201d said Rabiu Biyora, the undisputed king of tapping in Kano, opening one of his five foldable phones<\/a> to add to his 2.7 billion taps on the TapSwap app. \u201cNot to attack me, but to collect something from me.\u201d<\/p>\n A relaxed, businesslike 39-year-old followed everywhere by young tech-savvy acolytes, Mr. Biyora would only say that he made \u201cover $10,000\u201d from the previous tapping craze.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n He profits from everyone else\u2019s taps, so he encourages them in posts on social media, and by providing free internet to anyone willing to sit outside his house. Nigerians don\u2019t need much encouragement \u2014 despite the risks and volatility, Nigeria has the second highest<\/a> cryptocurrency adoption rate in the world.<\/p>\n So every evening, struggling young men gather by Mr. Biyora\u2019s home and tap.<\/p>\n In much of Nigeria, it\u2019s normal to share with your neighbors and give alms to the poor.<\/p>\n Every day, people come to the gate of Kano\u2019s Freedom Radio station to drop off sheets of paper containing heartfelt appeals for help paying medical bills or school fees, or to recover from some disaster.<\/p>\n A radio presenter chooses three to read out daily, and often a sympathetic listener calls in to pay the supplicant\u2019s bill.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n But lately the appeals have multiplied, and offers of help have dried up.<\/p>\n Good Samaritans used to come to the E.R. and pay strangers\u2019 bills<\/a> for them, Mr. Garba said. That rarely happens now either.<\/p>\n Still, Mr. Garba said, the number of patients coming to his hospital has almost halved in recent months.<\/p>\n Many of the sick never even make it. They can\u2019t afford the 20-cent bus ride.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Pius Adeleye contributed reporting from Ibadan, Nigeria.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nNo Money for Milk<\/h2>\n
A Country Built on Gas<\/h2>\n
The Tapping Craze<\/h2>\n
Pleas for Help<\/h2>\n