ABUJA – Security forces fired gunshots and tear gas to quell mass protests across Nigeria on Thursday as thousands, mostly young people, poured onto the streets to rally against the country's worst cost-of-living crisis in a generation. At least two people were reported killed.
The deaths occurred in northern Niger state where protesters clashed with security forces after blocking a major road, the local Daily Trust newspapers reported.
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Elsewhere, police opened fire in at least two other states as crowds demanded an end to the spiraling economic crisis that has rendered the people of Africa’s top oil producer among the poorest in the world.
The demonstrations, dubbed “day of rage,” called for an end to chronic corruption and bad governance.
Live broadcasts from the protests showed some protesters looting warehouses and damaging public property. Three governors declared curfews in their states, saying that thugs had hijacked the protests.
Rights groups and activists denounced the violence and said police used excessive force.
Anietie Ewang, a Nigerian researcher with Human Rights Watch who monitored the protests, said they started peacefully and insisted the threat did "not require that level of response.”
There was no immediate comment from the government. Nigeria’s public officials, frequently accused of corruption, are among the best paid in Africa — a stark contrast to the hardship suffered by the masses.
The rallies kicked off with banners, bells and Nigeria’s green-and-white flag as protesters chanted songs and listed their demands, including the reinstatement of gas and electricity subsidies. Their removal as part of the government’s reform efforts to grow the economy has had a knock-on effect on the price of just about everything else.
Some carried banners reading, “This hunger is too much.”
“People are fed up and angry because we deserve better,” said Jude Sochima, one of the protesters in Abuja, the country's capital.
In Abuja, where a court granted an order late Wednesday to restrict the protest to a stadium, police repeatedly fired salvos of tear gas at protesters gathered in a district with mainly government offices. Police also fired tear gas at protesters in Bauchi and Borno states in the conflict-battered northeast.
Many businesses shuttered amid fears the protests could be a replay of the deadly 2020 demonstrations against police brutality in the West African nation — or a wave of violence similar to last month’s protests in Kenya, where a tax hike led to chaos in the capital, Nairobi.
Though there was no single group leading the protests, which were originally planned to last 10 days, calls for the demonstrations had over the past days gained momentum on social media and mounted pressure on the Nigerian government as millions struggle in the face of economic and security crises.
Prominent activist Omoyele Sowore said Thursday the demonstrators won’t back down until their demands are met.
The protesters said they were also troubled over the country’s deadly security crisis in the conflict-battered north, which President Bola Tinubu had promised to end when he was on the campaign trail. Fourteen months into office, the country’s challenges have persisted, and even worsened in some instances, official statistics show.
Also Thursday, some groups staged demonstrations in support of the Nigerian leader.