Paul Alaje, the Chief Economist at SPM Professionals, stated that Nigeria loses billions of dollars daily from the ongoing nationwide #EndBadGovernance protests.
During an interview on Channels Television, he attributed the widespread hunger and poverty in the country to the combination of petrol subsidy removal, increase in electricity tariff, and naira devaluation by President Bola Tinubu’s administration.
Alaje urged the Federal Government to heed the cries of Nigerians amidst the prevailing hardship and poverty in the country
‘’Nigeria loses N350 billion daily from the ongoing nationwide #EndBadGovernance protests.
“But it comes with costs. When people are not able to move, like what happened yesterday. At least the cost we can estimate is about N350 billion
“The gain from the protest is for the government to hear the cry of the people and for the government to know that the people can also checkmate their actions,” he said.
It would be recalled that angry Nigerians defied warnings by the authorities and took to the major cities for rounds of protest to decry a severe cost of living crisis and bad governance.
According to reports, more than a dozen people were killed when law enforcement forces fired on protesters on Thursday in several northern states including Borno, which was also among those to introduce a day-long curfew as part of efforts to curtail the unrest.
Organisers of the protests, which also took place in the commercial hub of Lagos and the capital Abuja, had called for Nigerians to show their displeasure at soaring food prices and three-decade-high inflation over 10 days of demonstrations.
But Alaje believes that the Nigerian government and the organisers of the protests should come to a round table to resolve their differences.
He said the protests if allowed to continue, would hurt the nation’s economy as many people were scared of opening their businesses.
“That is why the government and protesters need to come together to have a dialogue or negotiation regarding where the future should be.
“It is not like protests happened everywhere but the fear of protests made a lot of people to close their shops. Many banks were shut down, and insurance companies were not functioning. So it has its major effect,” Alaje added.
