On Edge of Sahara, a Hated Currency Fix Hurts Livelihoods
- Traders in Nigeria’s north pass on import costs to customers
- Buhari resists devaluation as dollar shortage worsens
Photographer: Aminu Abubakar/AFP/Getty Images
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At a textile bazaar in northern Nigeria on the edge of the Sahara Desert, temperatures hover near 100 degrees and Abdullahi Abubakar is trying to calm two angry customers.
The 41-year-old trader explains to the women that prices on his Chinese fabrics have gone up to cover the spiraling costs of buying goods with black-market dollars. It’s a predicament wrought by President Muhammadu Buhari’s policy of pegging the naira and it’s strangling livelihoods in the leader’s power base 500 miles (805 kilometers) from Lagos.