Nigeria risks Sri Lanka’s fate as economy creaks

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, risks suffering the same fate as Sri Lanka as the lack of reforms in several sectors continues to put a lid on economic growth.

In Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka, cooking gas cylinder is scarce, prices are out of control and social unrest has spilled onto the streets.

The economic crisis in Sri Lanka is spiralling into a humanitarian emergency as millions of people face acute shortages of food, fuel, cooking gas and medicine, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent warned on Friday.

But Sri Lanka’s economic woes did not just start overnight. It is the result of several years of a political crisis that has snowballed into financial crises and severe shortages of food, fuel, electricity, and medicine.