Guests poured in through an entry gate on the ground floor of a castle. Inside, vendors dressed as medieval court jesters sold balloons.<\/p>\n
At Magicland, a privately owned theme park in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, the country’s recurrent crises — from galloping inflation to armed insurgencies — fade into the background, at least for one afternoon.<\/p>\n
Nigeria’s fragile middle class has been battered by two years of soaring prices amid the country’s worst cost-of-living crisis in a generation.<\/p>\n
At Magicland, one content creator from Borno state — where international headlines typically centre on jihadist attacks — filmed TikTok dances as a brightly coloured big wheel towered behind her.<\/p>\n
Others took to the carnival rides, including 26-year-old public health worker Mary Adeleke, who said she’d once been an adventurous person.<\/p>\n
“But as I grew up, with how the country’s structured and all the struggles, I lost that part of me,” she said, adding she was on a quest to regain it, one roller coaster at a time.<\/p>\n
The west African nation is, by some metrics, a success story: a tech powerhouse, a major exporter of global cultural staples like Afrobeats, and the continent’s leading oil producer.<\/p>\n
But rampant inflation, a cost of living crisis and continued insecurity have proven hard for much of the country’s 228 million people.<\/p>\n
Walking out of a swinging pendulum ride, Victor Bamidele, 28, offered a review.<\/p>\n
“I thought it was something that would take my soul out of my body,” the medical device supplier said in typically colourful Nigerian English.<\/p>\n
“But it definitely did not,” he added. “It was quite enjoyable.”<\/p>\n
Victoria Friday drove 30 minutes from Nasarawa state. She paid the 1,500 naira ($1) entry fee, but seemed less keen on buying ride tickets.<\/p>\n
In a move relatable to budget-conscious young people the world over, the 20-year-old stylist said she “just came to snap my friend” — taking photos for social media among the colourful backgrounds.<\/p>\n
“Our prices are still very low,” said park manager Paul Oko.<\/p>\n
“Those who don’t earn much can still come,” he added, though he admitted the number of visitors has declined.<\/p>\n
nro\/sn\/djt<\/p>\n
\u00a9 Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Guests poured in through an entry gate on the ground floor of a castle. Inside, vendors dressed as medieval court jesters sold balloons. At Magicland, a privately owned theme park in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, the country’s recurrent crises — from galloping inflation to armed insurgencies — fade into the background, at least for one afternoon. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"subtitle":"","format":"standard","override":[{"template":"7","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"left-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"topbottom","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"1","show_post_related":"0","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"jnews_post_split":{"post_split":[{"template":"1","tag":"h2","numbering":"asc","mode":"normal","first":"0","enable_toc":"0","toc_type":"normal"}]},"footnotes":""},"categories":[196],"tags":[467,262,469,283,468],"class_list":["post-1558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-economy","tag-amusement","tag-entertainment","tag-inflation","tag-nigeria","tag-park"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}