President Tinubu calls for end to protests against economic hardship in Nigeria

Nigeria's President Bola Tinubu called on Sunday for a suspension of protests against a cost of living crisis, saying this would create an opportunity for dialogue, his first public comments since frustrated citizens took to the streets last week.

Amnesty International has said at least 13 people were killed in clashes with security forces on the first day of protests on Thursday. Police denied using excessive force and said seven people had died as of Saturday - four from an explosive device during a march in northeast Borno state, two who were hit by a car and another who was shot by a guard when protesters looted a shop.

In a televised broadcast, Tinubu called for an end to violence in several states since the protests started, saying he was always open for dialogue.

"My dear Nigerians, especially our youth, I have heard you loud and clear. I understand the pain and frustration that drive these protests, and I want to assure you that our government is committed to listening and addressing the concerns of our citizens," he said.

Nigerians have been mobilising online to organise protests against economic hardship and bad governance and have called for a cut in petrol prices and electricity tariffs, among several demands.

Tinubu, in office since May 2023, defended his economic reforms, which have included a partial end to petrol and electricity subsidies and devaluation of the naira, as necessary to reverse years of economic mismanagement.

He government revenues had more than doubled to 9.1 trillion naira ($5.65 billion) in the first half of this year while 68% of revenue now went to debt servicing, down from 97% before he took office in May last year.

The government was also ramping up spending on infrastructure projects, started a loan scheme for university students and was building thousands of housing units across Nigeria's 36 states, the president said.

"But we must not let violence and destruction tear our nation apart," said Tinubu. 

By Felix Onuah, Reuters 

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Nigerian singer, actor and activist Onyeka Onwenu dies aged 72

Onyeka Onwenu, the singer, actor, broadcaster and activist whose love ballads and songs about women’s rights were a soothing balm during Nigeria’s rocky 1980s and earned her the nickname “Elegant Stallion”, has died at 72.

She had just finished a performance at a private party on Tuesday night in Lagos when the singer became ill. Hours later, she died at a nearby hospital, having suffered a heart attack, according to local reports.


The Nigerian president, Bola Tinubu, was among those paying tribute to Onwenu and said she “lives on in her immortal masterpieces”.

The singer is best known for the disco anthem One Love (1986). Another of her hits, You and I, was repurposed for the 1999 movie, Conspiracy – which she also starred in – and is widely regarded as one of the most iconic soundtracks of Nollywood, the world’s second-largest film-production industry.

She was born in Obosi, Anambra, in January 1952 to Dickson Onwenu, a politician in pre-independence Nigeria, and Hope Onwenu, who was also a singer, and raised in Port Harcourt, Rivers state. She completed her education in the US – at Wellesley College, Massachusetts, and the New School, New York.

Upon her return to Nigeria, she launched her pop career while simultaneously working as a broadcaster at the state-run Nigerian Television Authority (NTA). While there, she wrote and narrated Nigeria: A Squandering of Riches, a 1984 collaborative documentary between the BBC and NTA, about corruption in the oil-rich country.

A contemporary of the jùjú maestro King Sunny Adé, they recorded the popular 1989 duet Choices, about consent and birth control, a stunningly bold move in a country that remains largely conservative decades later.

Another of her peers was the radical musician-activist Fela Aníkúlápó Kútì, who married 27 women in a 1978 ceremony. When he was arrested six years later by the military government of the day, Onwenu pushed for his release. In My Father’s Daughter, her 2021 memoir, she revealed that after his release he asked her to marry him, a request she emphatically turned down, although with good humour.

“I told him that I was a jealous lover and would not be able to cope as an appendage to his harem,” she wrote.

Onwenu released four albums before switching to become a gospel singer in the 1990s and was awarded national honours by Nigeria in 2003 and 2011.

Her self-assuredness as a confident woman was routinely misinterpreted as arrogance.

Ed Keazor, a historian and lawyer who knew Onwenu for more than two decades and represented her in the mid-1990s, said: “People often described her as being something of a tough nut. I’ll say this: she was even harder on herself. She pushed herself hard and expected the same from others.

“She was more than a client,” he said. “She was my big sister and heroine.”

Onwenu kept a very private personal life but is survived by two sons from a marriage in 1984, which she said she left because she was constantly depressed. “I raised my children [alone], from kindergarten to master’s degree,” she once told the press.

The best-known example of her tenacity was a three-day hunger strike at the premises of her former employer, the NTA, in July 2000. According to the BBC, she was protesting at being barred after complaining that the national channel was playing her music but not paying thousands of dollars in royalties it owed to her.

In her later years, she became a politician, and had a three-year stint as the head of the National Centre for Women Development, before focusing on the arts again.

The British-Nigerian film-maker Biyi Bandele cast her as grandmother to the twins Olanna and Kainene in the 2013 film adaptation of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novel Half of a Yellow Sun. Five years later, she also starred in Lionheart, Nigeria’s first Netflix original, alongside Nkem Owoh, her co-star in Conspiracy.

By Eromo Egbejule, The Guardian

Nigeria security forces deploy, government offers dialogue as protests loom

Nigerian security forces deployed in major cities and the government said it was open to dialogue ahead of planned protests on Thursday against a cost of living crisis and poor governance that authorities fear could turn violent.

After taking office more than a year ago, President Bola Tinubu swiftly removed some fuel subsidies, devalued the naira currency and later hiked electricity tariffs, moves that have sent inflation soaring past 34%, eroding incomes.

"We prefer dialogue, we are ready for dialogue," he told reporters, without saying whether the government had been in contact with the protest organisers. "Nigeria is a work in progress and things will soon improve."

Tinubu's government has so far used a mix of threats and cajoling to discourage the protests.
In the capital Abuja, the commercial hub Lagos and the northern city of Kano, armed police deployed on major roads, set up security check points and searched cars.

Police occupied the main square in Abuja that protesters planned to use, while military vehicles parked nearby.

A court order confined Lagos protesters to two venues on the outskirts of the city.

Some Lagos residents said they were worried that protests could turn violent as happened during anti-police demonstrations, known as EndSars, in October 2020, when lives were lost and properties destroyed.

At one of Kano's largest malls, Sufi Mart, workers were busy reinforcing windows with shutters.

"I don't want it (the protest) to extend into the night so that it doesn't turn out to be another thing like EndSars," said Nneka Ochiachebe, who sells second-hand clothes at a Lagos market.

By Macdonald Dzirutwe, Reuters 

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