Nairobi, April 13 -- Markets across Nigeria are recording fewer customers and diminishing patronage, a result of rising prices of food and other essential goods.

And angry Nigerians living on old wages and salaries have restricted purchases to the quantity they can afford, even if little.

These are the pains President Ahmed Tinubu warned would come to Nigerians soon after he took power last year in May. But he had said the pain would be short-lived, only that he didn't say by how many months.

Now President Tinubu is finishing his first year in office and Nigerians are still hard hit by inflation which has, for the first time in two decades, rose to 31.7 percent.

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The government says t...