Protests erupt across Nigeria over soaring living costs

Nigerian security forces have fired shots in the air and tear gas to break up protesters in the northern city of Kano and the capital Abuja as thousands joined rallies across the country against high costs of living.

Africa's most populous country is struggling with soaring inflation and a sharply devalued naira after President Bola Ahmed Tinubu ended a costly fuel subsidy and liberalised the currency more than a year ago to improve the economy.

Tagged #EndbadGovernanceinNigeria, the protest movement won support with an online campaign, but officials had warned against attempts to replicate recent violent demonstrations in Kenya, where protesters forced the government to abandon new taxes.

Many Nigerians are struggling with high costs — food inflation is at 40 percent and fuel is triple the price from a year ago — but many people were also wary about insecurity around protests.

In Kano, the country's second-largest city, protesters set fire to tyres outside the state governor's office and police responded with tear gas, forcing most of the demonstrators back, an AFP news agency correspondent at the scene said.

"We are hungry — even the police are hungry, the army are hungry," said Jite Omoze, a 38-year-old factory worker.

"I have two children and a wife, but I can't feed them anymore," he said, calling for the government to reduce fuel prices.

Violence and looting

Protesters later torched and ransacked a digital centre of the Nigeria Communications Commission near the Kano governor's office and police fired shots in the air to disperse pockets of looters, an AFP reporter said.

Police reported areas of looting and arson in the city and arrested 13 people. At a press conference, Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf later imposed a 24-hour curfew in Kano.

Officials in northern Yobe and Borno states also imposed 24-hour curfews.

In Abuja, security forces blocked off roads leading to Eagle Square — one of the planned protest sites — and fired tear gas and set up barbed wire fencing to prevent several hundred protesters from reaching the park.

Security forces also fired tear gas to disperse crowds in Mararaba on the outskirts of the capital, an AFP reporter said.

Around 1,000 people marched peacefully in the mainland area of the economic capital Lagos, where they chanted "Tinubu Ole", using the Yoruba language word for thief.