Nigeria’s Leader Thrills Markets With Week of Radical Change

  • New president scrapped fuel subsidy, unified exchange rate
  • Central bank governor and anti-corruption chief removed
Bola Tinubu in Abuja, Nigeria on May 29.Photographer: Kola Sulaimon/AFP/Getty Images
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Everything changed for investors in Nigeria this week.

Less than a month into his tenure, President Bola Tinubu has begun implementing a raft of reforms long sought by bankers, economists and multilateral lenders to revive Africa’s biggest economy from almost a decade of torpor. The changes have been radical: removing a fuel subsidy that cost the state $10 billion a year; dismissing the nation’s controversial central bank governor and devaluing the naira; and initiating an overhaul of Nigeria’s chronically inadequate power industry.