Mehkurydiaries

Nigeria now collects two taxes from many citizens. The first is deducted officially. The second waits at the petrol station. It requires no legislation, public hearing or mercy. On September 21, Reuters reported petrol selling around ₦1,400 per litre in Lagos and Abuja, reaching ₦1,500 in parts of the north. Diesel had crossed ₦2,000. These figures do not remain at the pump. Petrol is a restless traveller. It enters the bus fare. It follows the farmer to the market. It sits beside the generator in the barber’s shop. It hides inside sachet water, refrigerated medicine, bread and the delivery fee for nearly everything. In Nigeria, fuel is not merely an energy product. It is the operating system of daily survival. The painful irony is that this price surge has arrived while the Dangote refinery is reportedly operating at full capacity. Domestic refining has reduced dependence on imported finished fuel, but it has not built a wall around Nigeria. International crude prices still knock on ...

How Robert Mugabe killed one of Africa's richest economies Zimbabwe was once the bread basket of Africa. But it's been slammed by industrial mismanagement, food shortages, a collapsed currency and rampant corruption. Military leaders have seized control of the country in an apparent coup, deploying tanks in the capital city of Harare and placing 93-year-old President Robert Mugabe under house arrest. Mugabe has led the nation for nearly four decades, and is widely blamed for its economic collapse. Here's the story behind Zimbabwe's economic rise and fall: 1980s Mugabe was elected the first prime minister of a newly independent Zimbabwe in 1980 after spending years in prison for his politics. He was adored by many as a Nelson Mandela-style figure who would lead the country forward following decades of British and white-dominated rule. "He always had a populist stance, which meant he wanted to work in th...