“Eyin olowo o fun wan ounje je. Ojo n bo, a o wa fun yin.” A thug, said this to a friend of mine while he asked her for some money at the Lagos Marina, sometime in July.
Two weeks ago, one of my big nightmares stared me in the face. I was seated at a meeting somewhere at Sun City in Abuja, and essentially down the road from where I was, rioters set ablaze an MTN mast, and made their way towards the huge Shoprite complex at Lugbe along the Bill Clinton drive. They were hindered by the police, but for a while, I could not leave where I was for my next appointment, and a friend of mine who came into Abuja on that day could not leave the airport as taxis refused to move until it was clear to go into town.
You see, I travel a lot in my line of work, and given three things – the town planning of most Nigerian cities, the huge unemployment rate which is being reflected in our slums, and our worsening security situation –my biggest nightmare is being on an assignment outside of Lagos, witnessing attacks like that on MTN/Shoprite breakout and escalating, only to be trapped and unable to get back to my family.
This brings to mind the nature of the riots in response to the madness in South Africa. In the first hour of the reprisal attacks at the Novare Mall in Lagos, the mob went for Shoprite only. But very quickly, the whole thing escalated, and they started attacking other, fully Nigerian owned, businesses in the mall. The next day, a video emerged of a sports utility vehicle being attacked in traffic in Lagos, and on the same day, another video emerged, on Twitter, of a girl in traffic being asked by a thug why she was going to work when they were protesting. When I saw that video, I remembered the encounter my friend had, which I began this piece with, “You rich people won’t give us food to eat. One day we will come for you.”
In South Africa the unemployment rate stands at 29 percent, while the underemployment rate, according to Economic Research Southern Africa, stands at between 4 and 5 percent, making a total of 34 percent of the population who have too much idle time.
In Nigeria, the equivalent figures are 23 percent for unemployed people, and 18 percent for underemployed people, meaning that we have a higher proportion of our population idle than South Africa.
Now consider this – our population is 200 million, a figure open to question, while South Africa’s is 57 million. Looking at it simplistically, that is without the burden of having to calculate the size of the labour force et al, we have potentially 80 million idle hands in Nigeria. There are 23 million more idle people in Nigeria, than in South Africa. How is that not a national emergency?
There are issues in both South Africa and Nigeria. Both countries are experiencing economic downturns, rampant corruption, and leaders who are unwilling, or incapable, of proffering impactful solutions to the economic crises besieging their citizens. In South Africa, unscrupulous politicians now to push the narrative that the foreigners are coming in and taking opportunities away from hard-working South Africans in addition to introducing crime and drugs (this should sound eerily familiar to Americans).
Despite President Cyril Ramaphosa’s condemnation of the violence, others have been far more lukewarm, citing “Nigerian drug dealers” as the cause of the attacks. However, it turns out that the violence did not specifically target Nigerians, but black foreigners generally, as evidenced by the reprisal violence across southern and eastern Africa.
In Nigeria, the economic policies of the Buhari administration pushed the country into a recession from which it has only recovered on paper, and even that nominal recovery is rapidly slowing, with another recession looming large.
Jobs lost between 2016 and 2018 have not been replaced, and those with the means and opportunity are emigrating as fast as they can. Inflation has stubbornly remained double digit, wages are stagnant, and even those with jobs are no longer able to maintain the same standard of living.
The FG is unable to implement the new minimum wage which it agreed with the trade unions and passed into law, as it’s desperately in search for new source of revenue. An increase in VAT from 5 percent to 7.2 percent has been proposed subject to the approval of a pliant National Assembly, and an increase in the price of petrol is sure to follow.
There is a general air of hopelessness and rage in the country, with no fixed target. As such, when the xenophobic attacks in South Africa were tossed into this febrile atmosphere, they served to focus the rage on something, and the riots which followed were actually far milder than they could have been given that they were largely uncoordinated.
The images of the violence circulated on social media tell us that the members of the murderous South African mobs and the larcenous Nigerian mobs couldn’t be bothered to hide their identities. The only persons arrested in Nigeria were those who hung around after the rest of the mob had dispersed.
It is often said that idle hands are the Devil’s workshop, and given the events of the past week, the Devil is the only one hiring, and business is very good indeed.
CHETA NWANZE
Cheta Nwanze is the lead partner at SBM Intelligence and heads the company’s research desk.
