'I can't remember the last time we had dinner': Nigerians starve amidst soaring inflation

Lagos: Bola Adeshiyan last ate 16 hours ago and she is hungry. To take her mind off the ache in her stomach, she leaves her tiny one-bedroom flat and walks around the bustling streets of her neighbourhood in Lagos, Nigeria's commercial capital.

On her return, the 55-year-old drinks a little water and settles down to wait to collect leftover beans and unsold bread on credit from a food vendor later in the day.

She'll share the meal with her three grandchildren - Dara, Ayinke, and Oba - who have also not eaten since they shared five biscuits in the morning. They and their mother Esther also live in the one-bedroom flat.

Adeshiyan earns 10,000 naira ($6.49) a week as a cook but it's not enough to cover the weekly groceries for her family.

"I can't remember the last time we had dinner in this house this year. If they can get a cassava meal daily, that is a good day," Adeshiyan told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The Adeshiyans are among millions of families going to bed hungry in Nigeria as the country grapples with its worst inflation on record, the result of sweeping economic reforms that have sent prices soaring in Africa's most populous nation.

After he took office in May last year, President Bola Tinubu cancelled fuel and electricity subsidies, and devalued the naira against the dollar to attract investment and save money for infrastructure projects.

Petrol prices tripled, the naira collapsed against the dollar, and food prices soared, forcing Tinubu to open national grain reserves in a bid to control the situation by offering free foodstuffs to hungry families.

Today, basic staples like rice, beans, and bread have become luxury items. The economic hardship triggered nationwide protests this month, and at least 22 people were killed in clashes with the police, according to Amnesty International.

Esther told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that she spends half of the 60,000 naira she earns every month cleaning bathrooms at a school in the wealthy suburb of Lekki on transport costs that have tripled since petrol prices rose from 165 naira per litre to 600 naira after the subsidy cuts.

The rest goes on food for her children. But it is not enough.

Adeshiyan has also been unable to pay electricity bills as tariffs have tripled.

"After buying a tin of rice, a tin of beans and some tomatoes, what is left is to buy gas to cook it. We need to eat first before I can recharge (the) electricity," she said in her darkened apartment.

Crisis exacerbated by conflict, climate shocks

The crisis triggered by the economic reforms has been exacerbated by ongoing attacks by armed gangs on farms in food-producing northern states while climate change-related floods and droughts have decimated harvests in other regions, pushing prices higher and millions into hunger.

"The economic reforms had a huge effect on the ability of low-income people to give themselves adequate nutrition. People have been priced out of the market like I've never seen before," said David Stevenson, the head of the UN's World Food Programme in Nigeria.

Of the 55 million people facing crisis levels of food security in West Africa this year, 32 million are in Nigeria, up from 25 million in 2023, Stevenson said.

"The national food basket inflation (in Nigeria) is running at 40 per cent yearly, which is the highest in 30 years or more and the highest food inflation in Africa right now," he said.

During this month's protests, demonstrators called on Tinubu to restore the petrol and electricity subsidies. But the president has urged protesters to be patient and wait for his reforms to pay dividends.

On August 4, he said the government was ramping up spending on infrastructure projects, had started a loan scheme for university students and was building thousands of housing units across the 36 states.

Adeshiyan didn't join protests in Lagos because she feared they might turn violent but many of her neighbours did.

"As I'm complaining that there is no food, they are complaining, and you can tell we have lost hope," she said, pointing at empty food stalls on both sides of her street.

These days her grandchildren know not to expect three meals a day.

When the children cry for meat and refuse to eat the smoked cowhide - a tough but cheaper alternative - that she serves with rice on Sundays, she feels unable to offer much comfort.

"I tell them Nigeria is not what it used to be. I let them know that they're lucky to even have a meal in their belly."