THE NUMBER THAT LIES

Part Four. What Would Actually Have to Change Three parts ago, we started with a simple question. Nigeria is earning more from oil. So why is Grace buying rice in cups? By now you know the answer is not simple. You know the number she hears on the news is not the...

THE NUMBER THAT LIES

Part Three. Where the Dollar Goes After It Arrives Parts One and Two followed the dollar before it reached the Central Bank. The invisible IOU attached to the gross reserve figure. The five rooms it passes through, each one taking something. The NNPC parallel economy....

THE NUMBER THAT LIES

Part Two. The Journey of a Dollar Before a single dollar from oil reaches the Central Bank of Nigeria, it has to survive a journey that nobody has drawn on a single map. That is not an accident. The journey passes through institutions with competing interests,...

THE NUMBER THAT LIES

Part One. The Misunderstanding Grace used to buy rice by the bag. Fifty kilograms at a time, stacked in the corner of the kitchen, enough for a month. Last year she switched to twenty-five. Now she buys in cups. A cup here. A cup when she can. She does not follow the...

THE DAY THE STATE WENT TO COURT FOR ITSELF

Two courtrooms opened in Abuja today. One is trying a man who called the President a criminal. The other is trying 36 officers who allegedly wanted to end his government entirely. Both proceedings are happening with as little public visibility as the state can...