Between June and August 2024, Nigeria and Kenya experienced growing political unrest. Youth-led protests began in Kenya over a controversial finance bill that sought to impose new taxes on an impoverished working class. The protests later spread to Nigeria as the #EndBadGovernance movement erupted against the backdrop of the government’s removal of fuel subsidies and devaluation of the naira, leading to record high inflation.
Enabled in large part by the growing use of digital technology in civic activism, African youth are waging a fierce struggle against the harmful effects of IMF/World Bank-imposed austerity measures. And while the platforms of mobilisation are new, the struggle itself is not. Indeed, protests against neo-liberal policies and the austerity measures they promote in Africa can be traced back to the 1980s, when Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) were first introduced. It is, therefore, a struggle that unites people across generations and sections of society in their collective response to the IMF/World Bank-inspired recipe for development in Africa. What Africans are really asking their governments to do is to resist the dictates of neo-liberalism and to create a new paradigm for development.
After gaining independence, most African states have adopted two main development strategies: the first is the public sector-led, state-regulated, import-substitution industrialisation strategy; and the second is the private sector-led, market-driven, export-oriented development strategy. While the former is mainly driven by domestic capitalists, often seeking state protection, the latter is designed to favour and hand over control of African economies to foreign, preferably Western, capitalists. Indeed, the second development model is not only imposed by the Bretton Woods Institutions as part of their loan and aid conditionalities given to economically distressed low- and middle-income states but also described as a panacea for the perceived challenges wrought by state-led development strategies.
The adoption of neoliberal reforms in Africa has increased reliance on the private sector and market forces and diverted resources from the public sector, making the state increasingly unable to provide basic services and support to vulnerable citizens. Thus, a feature of World Bank and IMF neoliberal prescriptions in Africa is that they are inherently prone to social vulnerability and consequent political upheavals, as we see in Nigeria and Kenya today.
After more than four decades of experimentation, evidence shows that no low- and middle-income country in Africa or elsewhere has developed by adopting the IMF-World Bank recipe. On the contrary, Bretton Woods-inspired economic policies in Africa have further worsened people’s living conditions amidst growing destitution and a palliative economy.
In 2008 and 2012, protests broke out in two West African countries, Burkina Faso and Nigeria. While in the case of Burkina, the protests were against increased taxation and food price hikes, the 2012 #OccupyNigeria movement was triggered by the removal of fuel subsidies. In both countries, these policies, which were implemented as a response to the global capitalist meltdown of 2008, deepened economic hardship by increasing the cost of petroleum products, transport, food and other essential services.
At the time, the intergenerational and popular nature of these anti-neoliberal struggles was reflected in the composition of the leading actors, who were drawn from various trade unions, civil society organisations, opposition parties, women’s groups, youth organisations, student unions and celebrities (especially music artists and filmmakers). These key actors were used to mobilise the lower classes to protest against deteriorating living standards.
Similarly, the recent #EndBadGovernance protests in Nigeria were a reaction to the same policies that have increased poverty levels in the country. While wasteful public spending and official corruption were at the root of the protests, the protesters later extended their demands to broader governance issues which they felt have combined to make life unbearable for ordinary Nigerians. Hostility towards the state was fuelled by austerity measures such as fuel subsidy removal, currency devaluation, widening of the tax net and electricity tariff hikes. Notably, these measures were part of the World Bank’s loan conditionalities to the Nigerian government, as expressed in the August 2022 US$800 million post-fuel subsidy removal palliatives for the poor loan agreement. It is worth noting the irony in these conditions: the World Bank agreed to a loan to help the poor while imposing measures that would impoverish more Nigerians. The fact that the Nigerian government agreed to such terms speaks volumes about the short-sightedness of the decision-makers.
Suffice it to say that in such a context, it is not surprising that the demands of the protesters include a) reversing fuel prices and electricity tariffs, public financial accountability; b) banning government funding for pilgrimage, unsustainable borrowing, foreign travel for public servants, foreign education for children of public office holders, c) combating hunger. In other words, Nigerians want at least two things. One, that their leaders sacrifice as much, if not more, than ordinary people. Two, that the IMF-World Bank measures be overturned.
Despite the attempts of the Bretton Woods twins to evade scrutiny amid growing protests in Africa and elsewhere, the experience of low- and middle-income countries in Central America, South America, the Pacific, Asia and Africa shows that no country has escaped the economic devastation and political unrest caused by IMF-World Bank loan and aid conditionalities, which often involve the removal of subsidies, currency devaluations, the destruction of social safety nets, increased taxation and the abandonment of citizens’ welfare. Only those countries that have resisted the IMF and World Bank by strategically using subsidies to support their economies, improve the lives of their citizens and protect their national currencies have managed to prosper independently of Western influence.
Given the historical and intergenerational struggle against neoliberalism, a growing number of Africans have come to understand that the government’s narrative that their current hardships are only temporary and will eventually lead to great success is false.
In Kenya and Nigeria, the authorities blamed the protests on subversive foreign elements. Ironically, it is African leaders who, by failing to prevent intrusion in our countries’ policy space and to imagine a new development paradigm, have invited subversive foreign forces into our midst – the same forces that are now imposing policies against the will and interests of the African people.
