A protest organised by unions and youth groups about the cost of living crisis on Nigeria’s Democracy Day in June passed off quietly, drawing just a few hundred people in the country’s biggest city, Lagos, and the capital, Abuja.
Then things started to kick off in Kenya. Young Kenyans angry at the prospect of increased levies on essential foodstuffs occupied parliament in Nairobi amid violence that claimed more than 20 lives. Kenya’s president, William Ruto, was forced to withdraw his finance bill and dissolved his cabinet.
