The IMF Structural Adjustment Programme imposed by General Ibrahim Babangida from 1986 had by 1989 collapsed real wages by 60%, devalued the naira from ₦1 = $1.50 (1985) to ₦7.50 = $1 (1989), and made the FOREX-priced consumer basket unaffordable for the urban salariat. On 24 May 1989 the federal budget — including a 38% fuel-price increase — was announced; on 25 May students at the University of Benin, Ahmadu Bello University and the University of Lagos went onto the streets.
Between 25 May and 7 June 1989 protests spread to Ibadan, Port Harcourt, Sokoto, Onitsha and Lagos. The Lagos disturbances (1–2 June) produced the most concentrated violence: branches of Citibank, Chase Manhattan, Standard Chartered (Marina and Lagos Island), the IMF resident-representative office on Awolowo Road, and several Lebanese-owned supermarkets at Apapa were burnt. Mobile Police opened fire at multiple sites. Official federal returns acknowledged 14 dead; the Nigeria Labour Congress count was 50; the Lagos coroner returned 26 known fatalities.
Babangida's response — characteristic — was to ignore both the deaths and the underlying SAP-induced collapse. The 7 June 1989 'Address to the Nation' announced a National Day of Prayer, set up the Babangida Review Panel on Economic Sanctions (later quietly disbanded), and reaffirmed the SAP. NLC President Pascal Bafyau and four other labour leaders were arrested; ASUU was again proscribed.
The 1989 cycle — fiscal shock, youth protest, state shoots, prayer-day instead of policy reversal — is the exact cycle reproduced in 2012 (Occupy Nigeria) and 2024 (#EndBadGovernance). The structural-adjustment regime introduced in 1986 has never been formally reversed; the 2023 fuel-subsidy removal under Tinubu is the latest iteration of the same prescription.