From Shege to Banza
World Banks says Nigeria isn’t making it out of the food crisis trenches anytime soon
Good morning, Big Brains. If you’re new here, hiii! I’m Margaret and my new kink is helping people get smarter about everything that’s going on in the world. It’s nice to have you here. Feel free to share the newsletter if you love today’s edition.
- Margaret
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This Week’s Big Question - “What’s one random thing you wish you could tell President Tinubu?” Share your responses with us and if we think it’s fun enough, we’ll feature them in the newsletter :) so be on the lookout.
Let’s get into the news you missed during the weekend:
Nigeria just unlocked a new level in the Hunger Games
Tinubu is on a presidential tour and doesn’t want you in his business
Trump wants to unalive migrants and liberate “Americans”
The Big Deal
Nigeria just unlocked a new level in the Hunger Games
Nigerians are officially no longer allowed to use the “Naija no dey carry last” quote. Don’t shoot the messenger but that’s what World Bank said.
2024 has been a tough year in Nigeria. We wish we had better news for you but the World Bank’s newly released data shows that things are getting even worse.
While countries like Afghanistan, Kenya and Guatemala are making it out of the food crisis trenches, Nigeria is diving deeper into the deep end of hunger.
Remember the 31.8 million Nigerians struggling with the food crisis? Well, that number has increased to over 41.8 million. The World Bank just confirmed that over a million more people in Nigeria are now unable to access food.
We’re not sure you need us to state the obvious but World Bank believes that Nigeria’s food inflation, which is still one of the highest in the world, is the major cause of Nigeria’s worsening hunger situation. With the continuous increase in food prices, it's getting tougher for many families, especially those earning less, to afford even the basics.
Why is this a big deal?
In less than two months, one million other people have joined the growing list of Nigerians who can no longer afford to eat comfortably. You might not find this disturbing until you compare what food prices looked like in 2023 to what it looks like now.
Even though President Tinubu has been sticking to his poorly written “It gets worse before it gets better” script, data has shown that “better” isn’t happening to Nigeria anytime soon.
Instead of the Tinubu-led administration implementing the temporary food tax removal it promised in July, the administration has been focusing more energy on playing blame games and trying to make sure the “T-Pain” nickname doesn’t stick. His wife, Remi Tinubu who now has a statue of her standing “heroically” in Osun state, has also been busy, allegedly squandering millions of naira since her husband got into office.
While Nigerians starve, Tinubu continues to play the victim by insisting that he’s saddened to know that Nigerians don’t believe in his reforms. Unfortunately, our president’s bruised ego and lack of urgency towards stabilizing the rising cost of living are key indicators that we’re not making it out of the trenches anytime soon.
Tinubu is on a presidential tour and doesn’t want you in his business
‘Tis presidential vacation season, innit. Our president has been everywhere except his own country these days. After enjoying the best things the United Kingdom (UK) has to offer, a new season of Tinubu in Paris has now premiered. The President’s team mentioned over the weekend that he’s attending a “very important meeting” in France but they are keeping the details of the meeting very vague.
While the rest of us were recovering from the pain of what Nigeria’s Independence Day had been reduced to, the President flew to the UK in his luxurious aircraft on October 2 for his “presidential vacation”. Some Nigerians expected the president to come back to the country to explain how fuel prices went from ₦950/litre to ₦998/litre in Lagos and as high as ₦1,003 in the northeastern states. but T-pain seems to still be in his vacation mood.
When is he coming back?
It’s either the president’s team thinks this information is none of our business or they don’t know either. This is not the first time the specific affairs of the president have been a secret to Nigerians.
Sometime in May, Presidential Aspirant Atiku tweeted on X about the president’s disappearance and it sparked public interest. Even though he came back to the country a few days later, the details of where he went and what he was doing there were still vague.
Like the cool kids say these days, maybe your President just has a bad habit of ghosting when things hit the roof.
Trump wants to unalive migrants and liberate “Americans”
Over the weekend, Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, added a new quote to his list of controversial opinions. The former president is now suggesting that migrants who kill U.S. citizens or law enforcement officers should start facing death penalties
Trump, doing what Trump does best, doubled down on more controversial claims, saying that the US has become “occupied America” because of the “invasion of migrants. His not-so-new claims are now making people question what would happen if he becomes America’s next president
He also lowkey proposed policies that are centred around mass deportation and promised to implement them if reelected. The man didn’t stop there, he went ahead to make another bold promise to the crowd: “November 5, 2024 (election day) will be liberation day in America,” he said. We’re not sure who he’s planning to "liberate," but the vibe he was giving suggests that the race he wants to liberate starts with W and ends with E.
Trump has been riding hard on this anti-immigrant wave throughout his campaign, blaming Biden for the increase in border crossings. But some Americans have started calling him out for moving like a white supremacist.
One thing’s for sure, Trump isn’t the biggest fan of your “japa to America” dreams.
The Big Picks
Why Nigerian Drivers Are Considering Becoming Gun Owners: Driving in Nigeria has been an extreme sport for years, but it’s about to get even crazier because your favourite lawmakers are proposing another controversial bill that’s making Nigerians question why they are not legally permitted to own guns.
SpaceX ‘Catches’ First Ever Megarocket Booster After Test Flight: SpaceX pulled off a major win on Sunday by successfully "catching" the first-stage booster of its Starship megarocket as it landed back on the launch pad after a test flight. This is a world first and a big step forward in the company’s mission to make rockets rapidly reusable.
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