Nigeria Recorded A Massive Economic Degradation Within the Last 12 months

As I have written here many times, I use many unconventional ways to pick indicators on where things are in Nigeria. To model the strength of the export of our physical goods, I ask friends to send me images of ships as they arrive and depart the harbours, from Marina Street’s highrise buildings in Lagos. Right now, most ships arrive fully loaded but depart partly loaded or empty.

Also, I do ask contacts in aviation to send me how many planes are parked at night in our major airports. Those give me indications on supply chain and the strength of economic activities. Again, the total number of operating planes in Nigeria has dropped from this time last year.

Last year, I added a new element: ask people to examine traffic in their village’s popular junctions on Christmas and New Year days. Yes, compared with last year’s traffic, were those junctions busier, etc. The consensus I am getting from most I have sampled is clear: in most parts of southern Nigeria, people did not visit home and many popular rural junctions did not experience as much traffic as last year’s. In other words, most people did not travel to rural areas during this Christmas break.  Whenever that happens, it means there is economic stress. Yes, no money to travel! (The high cost of transportation due to the removal of the fuel subsidy could also be a huge factor.)

Let me ask you: if you visited home during the holidays,  is this consistent with your observation? Did you see more people and vehicular traffic in the village? 

Good People, from Oriendu Market Junction to Ababa Imenyi Junction, in Abia State, to other junctions, traffics dropped significantly.

Nigeria cannot afford to disconnect rural Nigeria from urban Nigeria. We must make sure that the connection remains. But as it stands, it does seem like Nigeria recorded a massive economic degradation within the  last 12 months due to changes in forex policy and fuel prices.

This is not suprising: supply chain is commerce and when that is broken, everything fades. With the cost of transportation high due to fuel re-pricing, Nigeria dislocated the equlibrium.  I do not support the removal of fuel subsidy because every country on earth subsidies something; Nigeria has the capacity to fuel production with common-sense subsidy of energy. My only solution has been simple: remove the corruption in Nigeria’s fuel subsidy which makes it look bad. 

Yes, it was similar to my position on border closure where I noted that  you do not close your land borders because your Customs officers are ineffective; a better solution would have been to fire those men and women, and get new people to do their jobs.

I do hope we do not forget rural Nigeria as transportation cost can widen the “distance”, considering that the collapse of the postal service has already taken most of those rural areas out of our national economic maps.

I use many unconventional ways to pick indicators on where things are in Nigeria. To model the strength of the export of our physical goods, I ask friends to send me images of ships as they arrive and depart the harbours, from Marina Street’s highrise buildings in Lagos. Right… pic.twitter.com/V5Dfqz3Iqt

— Ndubuisi Ekekwe (@ndekekwe) January 4, 2024

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