In January, Nigeria’s food prices surged past 20% which will have an increase amount of pressure on the average Nigerian household. With an ongoing global pandemic, Nigeria’s job market has taken a tremendous hit which causes even more financial pressure on people. Inflation is in the double digits since 2016 which is because of the drop in oil prices which is Nigeria’s main export. Food prices which make up a large majority of the inflation rate rose just about 22% in February according to the Bureau of Statistics. People are worried that a country who is going into recession, kidnappings of schoolchildren, and other social problems will spiral the country into a social unrest. Inflation prices will not go down any time soon since only 30.6 million Nigerians out of 210 million are fully employed. The economic crisis sis eating up economic gains to a point where government stimulus might be too weak to generate jobs. President Muhammadu Buhari has made investment in rail and road a focus on his administration’s drive to kick-start growth.
Nigeria which is considered one of the poorest countries in the world because of their poverty rate is no coincidence to the rise of food prices. With the global pandemic going on the country is struggling with employment which coincides with the rise of prices since the monetary is not flowing. This is affecting the region because the region will have to provide economic support to the country to help provide assistance in getting Nigeria out of a recession. Immigrants will also start flooding into neighboring countries to try and get out of a conflict area if things keep getting worse such as the schoolgirl kidnappings and rising food prices.
From a liberal perspective, Nigeria needs to work together with surrounding countries in order to get out of a recession and get a majority of their population out of poverty. With Intergovernmental Organizations such as the World Health Organization they are able to step in and in put supplies and support into the area in order to rebalance the area. The IGOS can also help support the region in the recent kidnappings which is an ongoing problem since December.