Six Charts Show the Challenges Facing Nigeria’s Next Government
Bola Tinubu, the winner of Nigeria’s presidential election, faces the most immediate tasks of dealing with an acute cash and gasoline shortage in Africa’s biggest economy.
Election posters for Bola Tinubu and his running mate Kashim Shettima in the Yaba district of Lagos, Nigeria.
Photographer: Benson Ibeabuchi/BloombergNigerian president-elect Bola Tinubu will have a lot on his plate. In the weeks leading up to Saturday’s election, Africa’s most populous country faced acute shortages of both gasoline and hard currency, leading to chaotic scenes at gas stations and banks across the nation. It was the culmination of eight years in which Nigerians have, by nearly every metric, become poorer and less safe.
Criminality and violence has spread throughout the country, driven by Nigeria’s stark economic deterioration over the course of President Muhammadu Buhari’s time in office. Production of oil, the lifeblood of the economy, fell to a multidecade low last year; inflation hit a 17-year high; and economic growth slumped, averaging just 1.1% annually from 2015 to 2021.