On this week's DW News Africa: Why millions in Nigeria are risking cancer and other health issues to put food on the table, as more people turn to spoiled produce amid rising costs.
Tuesday, September 22, 2026
Video - Why millions in Nigeria are risking cancer
On this week's DW News Africa: Why millions in Nigeria are risking cancer and other health issues to put food on the table, as more people turn to spoiled produce amid rising costs.
Video African swine fever outbreak threatens pork supplies in Nigeria
An outbreak of African swine fever in Nigeria’s Plateau State has killed thousands of pigs, forcing some farmers to sell their animals at sharply reduced prices or halt operations altogether. The outbreak is raising concerns over pork supplies and livelihoods across the industry.
Nigerian residents protest as hundreds remain captive a month after mass kidnapping
Residents of Nigeria's north-central Niger protested on Monday over the abduction of hundreds of people who they said remained in captivity a month after gunmen attacked several communities in one of the country's largest mass kidnappings.
The protesters, from Dekara and neighbouring communities in Borgu district where residents say armed men abducted about 600 people, mostly women, children and the elderly, converged on the local government headquarters in New Bussa to demand the captives' release.
Borgu, roughly 300 km (186 miles) from the state capital Minna, lies along Nigeria's border with the Republic of Benin to the west.
The protest increases pressure on President Bola Tinubu's government to tackle insecurity, a hot issue ahead of elections in January 2027.
Although Tinubu ordered an immediate rescue operation following the August 21 attacks, the kidnap victims have yet to be found.
"Security agencies have been mobilised, but we are yet to get any response from them. The government is definitely making efforts to rescue the people," Niger State Commissioner for Information Obed Nuhu Nana told Reuters.
'CLOSE TO 700' IN CAPTIVITY
Residents have previously said about 600 people were abducted but authorities have not given a number.
Abdullahi Yahaya Sadauki, president of the Borgu Youths Development Association, said communities now estimated that close to 700 people were being held by kidnappers.
Reuters could not independently verify the figure.
"Let a head count be conducted in the villages. That will be the best way to establish if our claim is true or not," Sadauki said.
Abdulmutallib Dindey, a member of the youth association and among the protesters, said insecurity had restricted residents' access to markets and healthcare.
Hanifa Konkoso, 26, said shops were closed in Borgu despite Monday being a market day as residents observed a shutdown.
"We want the government to take action," she said, adding that residents continue pressing authorities to secure the release of the captives and restore security.
The protesters, from Dekara and neighbouring communities in Borgu district where residents say armed men abducted about 600 people, mostly women, children and the elderly, converged on the local government headquarters in New Bussa to demand the captives' release.
Borgu, roughly 300 km (186 miles) from the state capital Minna, lies along Nigeria's border with the Republic of Benin to the west.
The protest increases pressure on President Bola Tinubu's government to tackle insecurity, a hot issue ahead of elections in January 2027.
Although Tinubu ordered an immediate rescue operation following the August 21 attacks, the kidnap victims have yet to be found.
"Security agencies have been mobilised, but we are yet to get any response from them. The government is definitely making efforts to rescue the people," Niger State Commissioner for Information Obed Nuhu Nana told Reuters.
'CLOSE TO 700' IN CAPTIVITY
Residents have previously said about 600 people were abducted but authorities have not given a number.
Abdullahi Yahaya Sadauki, president of the Borgu Youths Development Association, said communities now estimated that close to 700 people were being held by kidnappers.
Reuters could not independently verify the figure.
"Let a head count be conducted in the villages. That will be the best way to establish if our claim is true or not," Sadauki said.
Abdulmutallib Dindey, a member of the youth association and among the protesters, said insecurity had restricted residents' access to markets and healthcare.
Hanifa Konkoso, 26, said shops were closed in Borgu despite Monday being a market day as residents observed a shutdown.
"We want the government to take action," she said, adding that residents continue pressing authorities to secure the release of the captives and restore security.
By Hamza Ibrahim, Reuters
The Quiet Defection: How Falling Solar Economics Are Triggering Nigeria’s Grid Exodus
Across urban neighborhoods in Nigeria, the familiar morning roar of fossil-fuel generators is steadily giving way to quiet rooftops. Rather than waiting for a turnaround from a chronically unstable power grid, homeowners are staging an unheralded defection. Driven by a historic drop in global solar panel prices and sharp tariff increases, the math behind household energy has permanently shifted: staying hitched to an intermittent central grid backed by petrol has simply become bad business.
The structural weakness of Nigeria’s national grid highlights why this shift was inevitable. Delivering roughly 3,940 megawatts to over 200 million people, the network stands in stark contrast to economies like Egypt and South Africa, which supply tens of thousands of megawatts to far smaller populations. The system remains trapped in a financial stranglehold, with generation companies owed roughly ₦6.8 trillion and upstream gas suppliers withholding fuel over ₦3.3 trillion in unpaid debts. Because thermal stations receive less than half the gas required to run at capacity, frequent grid collapses continue to plague the network, with each nationwide restart draining millions of dollars in emergency operational costs.
For decades, families plugged these daily power outages with private generators. That routine has become an unbearable financial drain, with the average home spending approximately ₦1.5 million each year solely on fuel, oil, and continuous mechanical repairs. In contrast, an upfront investment of around ₦5 million for a quality rooftop solar and inverter setup now reaches full financial breakeven in less than three and a half years. Even though local currency fluctuations have pushed naira hardware costs higher, plunging manufacturing costs out of China have kept the overall proposition attractive, particularly as distribution companies continue adjusting tariffs upward for unreliable supply.
Battery storage remains the most expensive piece of the puzzle, consuming between 35% and 45% of the total installation bill. Installers and consumers are navigating this barrier by smartly rightsizing their systems, scheduling heavy daytime energy demands during peak sunlight hours, and preserving lithium capacity for night-time essentials.
This consumer revolution is not recorded on any formal government ledger or policy dashboard. Instead, it shows up quietly on residential streets, across markets like Computer Village where electronics merchants have pivoted from extension cables to lithium packs, and through local electricians rebranding as solar technicians. As paying middle-class households systematically cut ties with the grid, they leave behind an increasingly underfunded utility network with fewer solvent customers to foot the bill for its long-delayed recovery.
The structural weakness of Nigeria’s national grid highlights why this shift was inevitable. Delivering roughly 3,940 megawatts to over 200 million people, the network stands in stark contrast to economies like Egypt and South Africa, which supply tens of thousands of megawatts to far smaller populations. The system remains trapped in a financial stranglehold, with generation companies owed roughly ₦6.8 trillion and upstream gas suppliers withholding fuel over ₦3.3 trillion in unpaid debts. Because thermal stations receive less than half the gas required to run at capacity, frequent grid collapses continue to plague the network, with each nationwide restart draining millions of dollars in emergency operational costs.
For decades, families plugged these daily power outages with private generators. That routine has become an unbearable financial drain, with the average home spending approximately ₦1.5 million each year solely on fuel, oil, and continuous mechanical repairs. In contrast, an upfront investment of around ₦5 million for a quality rooftop solar and inverter setup now reaches full financial breakeven in less than three and a half years. Even though local currency fluctuations have pushed naira hardware costs higher, plunging manufacturing costs out of China have kept the overall proposition attractive, particularly as distribution companies continue adjusting tariffs upward for unreliable supply.
Battery storage remains the most expensive piece of the puzzle, consuming between 35% and 45% of the total installation bill. Installers and consumers are navigating this barrier by smartly rightsizing their systems, scheduling heavy daytime energy demands during peak sunlight hours, and preserving lithium capacity for night-time essentials.
This consumer revolution is not recorded on any formal government ledger or policy dashboard. Instead, it shows up quietly on residential streets, across markets like Computer Village where electronics merchants have pivoted from extension cables to lithium packs, and through local electricians rebranding as solar technicians. As paying middle-class households systematically cut ties with the grid, they leave behind an increasingly underfunded utility network with fewer solvent customers to foot the bill for its long-delayed recovery.
Nigeria’s refining revolution has a monopoly problem
Nigeria marked a major economic milestone on September 14, 2026, with the opening of the initial public offering (IPO) of Dangote Petroleum Refinery, the largest IPO in African history. Located in the Lekki Free Zone in Lagos, the refinery now has a crude-processing capacity of 700,000 barrels per day, up from 650,000, and cost approximately $20bn to build. It was commissioned in May 2023, while production of diesel and jet fuel began in January 2024, followed by the start of petrol supplies to the local market in September that year.
At the opening of the IPO, Dangote Group president Aliko Dangote said: “We fully share all our prosperity with the people. That’s why we call this the ‘People’s IPO’.” Days earlier, as the IPO documents were signed, he had presented the refinery as part of a broader African industrial project: “The refinery means too much to our continent. We can’t industrialise if we don’t have energy security.”
The contrast with Nigeria’s state-owned refineries could hardly be starker. While construction of the Dangote Refinery was under way, the government-owned facilities in Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna continued to struggle amid allegations of corruption, weak operational capacity, chronic political interference and an overreliance on short-term contracting models. Over the past two decades, estimates of spending on rehabilitation and turnaround maintenance range from more than $18bn to as much as $25bn, yet the refineries have remained largely dormant or operated at negligible capacity for much of the past decade.
This failure had severe consequences for Nigeria’s energy sector. For years, the country depended on imports for most of its domestic demand for petroleum products, particularly petrol and diesel. This placed immense pressure on foreign exchange reserves and the national budget, as billions of dollars were spent on fuel subsidies, while leaving the domestic market exposed to global price volatility and recurring fuel shortages.
With the launch of large-scale domestic refining projects such as Dangote, Nigeria has begun to move away from its longstanding reliance on exporting crude oil while importing much of the refined fuel it consumes. This shift has coincided with major reforms in the downstream oil sector. The government eliminated the costly petrol subsidy, allowing prices to move towards market levels, and introduced a “crude-for-naira” mechanism under which domestic refineries could buy crude oil in local currency rather than dollars. The scheme was intended to reduce pressure on foreign exchange and improve the supply of crude to local refiners.
The impact of increased domestic refining is already visible in Nigeria’s fuel trade. The country’s petrol imports have fallen from about 400,000 barrels per day in 2024 to about 83,000bpd this year. While the country has not eliminated its need for imported fuel, its dependence on imports has fallen sharply.
Yet the expansion of domestic refining has not delivered the lower fuel prices many Nigerians expected. Following the removal of the petrol subsidy and the shift towards market-based pricing, petrol prices rose from about 185 naira ($0.14) per litre before the reforms to more than 1,000 naira ($0.75) per litre, with prices continuing to fluctuate according to market conditions. The increase has fed into higher transport and production costs, adding to already severe inflationary pressures and placing a heavy burden on households. The broader cost-of-living crisis has also fuelled repeated protests and trade union action.
Domestic refining does not, by itself, insulate Nigeria from global oil prices or exchange-rate fluctuations. Refineries must still obtain crude at prices linked to international markets, while shortfalls in domestic crude supply have at times forced Dangote to buy part of its feedstock abroad in dollars. This means movements in global oil prices and the naira can still affect the cost of fuel sold domestically.
The severity of the cost-of-living crisis has also prompted questions about whether domestic refining is delivering genuine economic independence or merely replacing dependence on foreign suppliers with dependence on a dominant local producer. Such concerns have been reinforced by repeated public disputes since 2024 involving the Dangote refinery, the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) and the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) over crude supply, fuel import licences and the rules governing the domestic market.
Without effective competition and robust enforcement of existing antimonopoly safeguards, a highly concentrated domestic market risks limiting competitive pressure on prices. Consumers may therefore fail to receive the full benefits that domestic refining should provide, even as dependence on imported petroleum products falls.
Market concentration can also erode some of the cost advantages of domestic production. If a small number of major refiners and suppliers dominate the market, there is less competitive pressure to pass savings on to consumers. Nigerians may therefore see little benefit from reductions in some of the shipping, insurance and other costs previously associated with importing refined fuel.
For common Nigerians, the consequences of higher fuel prices extend far beyond the filling station. Increases in petrol and diesel prices quickly feed into transport costs, the prices of essential goods and the cost of running the generators on which millions of households and businesses still depend. Ultimately, this creates a situation in which domestic refining can generate enormous profits for a small number of powerful players, while common consumers continue to bear the full weight of rising prices and daily inflationary pressures.
At the same time, addressing the crisis requires recognising the challenges facing local refiners. Dangote buys crude at prices linked to the international market and, as a private business, cannot indefinitely absorb high input costs or subsidise fuel prices. The refinery has also faced difficulties securing sufficient crude from Nigerian producers, at times forcing it to make up the shortfall through purchases on the international market.
Many still believe that addressing these problems requires a package of legislative and regulatory measures, alongside the continued implementation of the mechanism allowing refineries to buy crude oil in naira under stable and sustainable terms. This could help shield the domestic market from exchange rate volatility and fluctuations in the US dollar. Others have called for major players to disclose their daily pricing structures and for regulators to ensure non-discriminatory treatment of local distributors and importers.
Accelerating the rehabilitation and return to full-capacity operation of state-owned refineries could also create stronger competition with the private sector. At the same time, providing facilities and incentives for small- and medium-sized refineries across the country could help meet local and regional demand while breaking the dominance of industry giants.
The government could also redirect funds previously spent on fuel subsidies towards improving electricity supply and subsidised public transport, while investing more heavily in healthcare and education. Its efforts to rapidly expand the use of compressed natural gas (CNG) as a cheaper alternative to petrol and diesel could also ease the pressure on consumers, although the programme has yet to deliver results on the scale required.
At the opening of the IPO, Dangote Group president Aliko Dangote said: “We fully share all our prosperity with the people. That’s why we call this the ‘People’s IPO’.” Days earlier, as the IPO documents were signed, he had presented the refinery as part of a broader African industrial project: “The refinery means too much to our continent. We can’t industrialise if we don’t have energy security.”
The contrast with Nigeria’s state-owned refineries could hardly be starker. While construction of the Dangote Refinery was under way, the government-owned facilities in Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna continued to struggle amid allegations of corruption, weak operational capacity, chronic political interference and an overreliance on short-term contracting models. Over the past two decades, estimates of spending on rehabilitation and turnaround maintenance range from more than $18bn to as much as $25bn, yet the refineries have remained largely dormant or operated at negligible capacity for much of the past decade.
This failure had severe consequences for Nigeria’s energy sector. For years, the country depended on imports for most of its domestic demand for petroleum products, particularly petrol and diesel. This placed immense pressure on foreign exchange reserves and the national budget, as billions of dollars were spent on fuel subsidies, while leaving the domestic market exposed to global price volatility and recurring fuel shortages.
With the launch of large-scale domestic refining projects such as Dangote, Nigeria has begun to move away from its longstanding reliance on exporting crude oil while importing much of the refined fuel it consumes. This shift has coincided with major reforms in the downstream oil sector. The government eliminated the costly petrol subsidy, allowing prices to move towards market levels, and introduced a “crude-for-naira” mechanism under which domestic refineries could buy crude oil in local currency rather than dollars. The scheme was intended to reduce pressure on foreign exchange and improve the supply of crude to local refiners.
The impact of increased domestic refining is already visible in Nigeria’s fuel trade. The country’s petrol imports have fallen from about 400,000 barrels per day in 2024 to about 83,000bpd this year. While the country has not eliminated its need for imported fuel, its dependence on imports has fallen sharply.
Yet the expansion of domestic refining has not delivered the lower fuel prices many Nigerians expected. Following the removal of the petrol subsidy and the shift towards market-based pricing, petrol prices rose from about 185 naira ($0.14) per litre before the reforms to more than 1,000 naira ($0.75) per litre, with prices continuing to fluctuate according to market conditions. The increase has fed into higher transport and production costs, adding to already severe inflationary pressures and placing a heavy burden on households. The broader cost-of-living crisis has also fuelled repeated protests and trade union action.
Domestic refining does not, by itself, insulate Nigeria from global oil prices or exchange-rate fluctuations. Refineries must still obtain crude at prices linked to international markets, while shortfalls in domestic crude supply have at times forced Dangote to buy part of its feedstock abroad in dollars. This means movements in global oil prices and the naira can still affect the cost of fuel sold domestically.
The severity of the cost-of-living crisis has also prompted questions about whether domestic refining is delivering genuine economic independence or merely replacing dependence on foreign suppliers with dependence on a dominant local producer. Such concerns have been reinforced by repeated public disputes since 2024 involving the Dangote refinery, the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) and the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) over crude supply, fuel import licences and the rules governing the domestic market.
Without effective competition and robust enforcement of existing antimonopoly safeguards, a highly concentrated domestic market risks limiting competitive pressure on prices. Consumers may therefore fail to receive the full benefits that domestic refining should provide, even as dependence on imported petroleum products falls.
Market concentration can also erode some of the cost advantages of domestic production. If a small number of major refiners and suppliers dominate the market, there is less competitive pressure to pass savings on to consumers. Nigerians may therefore see little benefit from reductions in some of the shipping, insurance and other costs previously associated with importing refined fuel.
For common Nigerians, the consequences of higher fuel prices extend far beyond the filling station. Increases in petrol and diesel prices quickly feed into transport costs, the prices of essential goods and the cost of running the generators on which millions of households and businesses still depend. Ultimately, this creates a situation in which domestic refining can generate enormous profits for a small number of powerful players, while common consumers continue to bear the full weight of rising prices and daily inflationary pressures.
At the same time, addressing the crisis requires recognising the challenges facing local refiners. Dangote buys crude at prices linked to the international market and, as a private business, cannot indefinitely absorb high input costs or subsidise fuel prices. The refinery has also faced difficulties securing sufficient crude from Nigerian producers, at times forcing it to make up the shortfall through purchases on the international market.
Many still believe that addressing these problems requires a package of legislative and regulatory measures, alongside the continued implementation of the mechanism allowing refineries to buy crude oil in naira under stable and sustainable terms. This could help shield the domestic market from exchange rate volatility and fluctuations in the US dollar. Others have called for major players to disclose their daily pricing structures and for regulators to ensure non-discriminatory treatment of local distributors and importers.
Accelerating the rehabilitation and return to full-capacity operation of state-owned refineries could also create stronger competition with the private sector. At the same time, providing facilities and incentives for small- and medium-sized refineries across the country could help meet local and regional demand while breaking the dominance of industry giants.
The government could also redirect funds previously spent on fuel subsidies towards improving electricity supply and subsidised public transport, while investing more heavily in healthcare and education. Its efforts to rapidly expand the use of compressed natural gas (CNG) as a cheaper alternative to petrol and diesel could also ease the pressure on consumers, although the programme has yet to deliver results on the scale required.
By Hakeem Najimdeen, Al Jazeera
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