There is a growing uprising sweeping across Africa where 70 percent of the population are young people below the age of 30, unhappy by their living conditions.
This growing frustration among Africa’s youths is pushing them to the streets to demand better governance amid cost-of- living crisis.
Nigerians, especially the youth, protesting nationwide since August 1, drawing inspiration from youth-led movements that shook the Kenyan government and sparked intense crackdowns in Uganda.
This is even as a youth-led planned cost of living protest in Ghana was quelled by a high court Wednesday.
The wave of protests is hitting African nations as the economy of various countries struggle from global inflation, covid-induced slump and internal economic mismanagement.
The Russia-Ukraine war and higher global interest rates have also affected emerging markets in Africa, but some countries like South Africa are reeling from this crisis as its inflation rate hit a two-month low of 5.1 percent June.
In Nigeria, Africa’s biggest economy, inflation quickened to 34.19 percent in June 2024, skyrocketing prices of food and other essentials while lowering residents’ spending power.
The rise in prices was fuelled by the sequencing of reforms – removal of the costly fuel subsidy and devaluation of the naira — by the President Bola Tinubu administration, analysts have said.
The policies, which are now over a year, are yet to taper the rising hardship in a country ranked lowest in food affordability index. This has now frustrated thousands of Nigerians demanding more actions from the president.
In Kenya, the government aimed to widen the tax net thereby sponsoring the controversial Finance Bill which triggered the unrest that shattered the East Africa most advanced economy.
Kenya’s national debt stands at around $80 billion, about three quarters of its annual economic output, and 65 percent of annual revenue goes to repaying the country’s debt.
The William Ruto administration’s response has been to cut several subsidies put in place by the former government, notably those on fuel.
Myriad other measures to raise revenues followed in 2023, including a five percent increase in income tax for high earners and a three percent housing levy (designed to raise funds to construct low-income housing), collected from both employees and employers.
Most of these policies fall under a set of reforms that Kenya has agreed to implement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Though President Ruto has dismissed his entire cabinet and scrapped the unpopular tax hike bill, not fewer than 50 people have been killed and nearly 700 arrested in a police crackdown on demonstrations since mid-June, according to the government-funded Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR).
This momentum even inspired neighboring Uganda to hold a brief protest against alleged corruption and demand the resignation of the parliament speaker.
Civil Society says recent protests in Africa hinged on bad governance, corruption
Auwal Musa Rafsanjani, executive director of the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre. said the recent wave of protests across Africa speaks to the level of corruption and bad governance rocking the continent.
“I think the protests are about bad governance, corruption, mismanagement, erosion of governmental institutions and high inflation,” Rafsanjani said, noting that people only protest when the government fails in its responsibilities.
Rafsanjani, who doubles as chairman of the Board of Amnesty International, Nigeria, however, cautioned the protesters to shun violence and avoid any infiltration that might frustrate their agitations.
African leaders not communicating enough to citizens
Adewunmi Falode, professor of History and Strategic Studies at Lagos State University, said besides bad governance which is the central cause of the protests, African leaders do not communicate policy programmes enough to their citizens.
“African leaders don’t really communicate with the citizens even if they have good intentions,” the LASU don said, asserting that when people are in the know of various reforms of government and its consequences, there may not be need to protests.
The former head of the department of History and International Relations said the subsidy removal in Nigeria came as a shock to the economy reeling from global supply chain disruptions.
Falode added that one of the values of democracy is timely communication between the government and the governed as this builds trust and transparency.
