Nigeria’s Next Leader Has No Time to Waste
Africa’s largest economy needs urgent reforms to stabilize the country’s fiscal situation and attract investment.
Best of luck.
Photographer: Kola Sulaimon/AFP/Getty Images
Some two weeks after ruling-party candidate Bola Tinubu claimed victory in Nigeria’s presidential elections, controversy is still swirling around the vote, delaying follow-up elections for state governors. But even if President-elect Tinubu takes office in May, as expected, he will quickly face an even bigger problem: restoring economic stability and growth, without which Nigeria’s overlapping challenges will be all the more difficult to resolve.
He’ll have his work cut out for him. Between killings by Islamist militants and criminal gangs, a re-emerging separatist movement, and clashes between farmers and nomadic herders, violence claimed the lives of roughly 10,000 Nigerians last year. Almost two-thirds of the country’s more than 200 million people now lack access to basic necessities.