By Prosper Mene, April 5, 2025
In a concerning display of frustration, hundreds of women flooded the streets of Kano today, banging empty pots and hoisting placards with messages like “We Can’t Feed Our Children” to protest the relentless surge in food prices that has pushed millions of Nigerian families to the brink. The demonstration, which began at dawn in the Fagge district, marked a crescendo in public anger over an inflation crisis that has seen the cost of staples like rice, yam, and beans double in the past year alone.
“We’re not begging for charity, we just want prices we can afford,” said Fatima Ibrahim, a 42-year-old trader and mother of five, her voice rising above the chants of the crowd. “How can I feed my family when a bag of rice costs more than I earn in a month?” Her words captured the desperation felt by many in Kano, Nigeria’s second-largest city, where women, often the backbone of household economies, bear the heaviest burden of the nation’s worsening cost-of-living crisis.
Organized by a coalition of grassroots women’s groups, including the Kano Mothers’ Network, the protest drew participants from across the city’s sprawling markets and low-income neighborhoods. Demonstrators marched toward the Government House, calling on Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf to press the federal government for urgent action—subsidies, price controls, or relief programs—to ease the strain. By midday, the crowd swelled to nearly a thousand, with some carrying wilted vegetables to symbolize their dwindling resources.
Nigeria’s inflation rate, hovering above 30% according to recent estimates, has been fueled by a mix of global supply chain disruptions, naira depreciation, and local factors like flooding that devastated farms in 2024. For women like Ibrahim, who rely on daily market sales to survive, the impact is immediate and devastating. “If I don’t sell, we don’t eat. But now, even selling isn’t enough,” she said.
The protest also spotlighted a gender divide in economic hardship. Women, who dominate informal trade and small-scale farming in northern Nigeria, have been hit hardest by rising costs, yet their voices are rarely heard in policy debates. “We manage the home, we feed the children, why are we ignored when the system fails?” asked Halima Sani, a protest organizer.
Governor Yusuf’s administration responded cautiously, with a spokesperson promising that officials were “actively engaging stakeholders” to address the crisis. However, no specific measures, such as the emergency food distribution requested by protesters—were outlined by the time the crowd dispersed under the late afternoon sun. The lack of immediate action drew sharp criticism from demonstrators, who vowed to return if their demands go unmet.
Today’s march in Kano joins a wave of similar protests led by women across Nigeria, from Lagos to Maiduguri, signaling a growing movement against economic policies that many say favor the elite over the struggling majority.
