PUNCH
NINE months after President Bola Tinubu ended petrol subsidies, Nigerians are none the wiser on the outcome of that decision. While the Federal Government and the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited insist that subsidy is gone, new reports countermand them. Although petrol price has accelerated from N187 per litre in the subsidy era, first, to about N500/l and between N580/l and N700/l now, some things do not add up.
The first sign of trouble was the unification of the multiple naira rates in June. It made the naira to depreciate consistently against the dollar, moving from N460.70 per $1 then to N1,500/$1 this month. With Nigeria importing nearly all the petroleum products it consumes, and the government capping the price at retail stations, the insistence that there is no more subsidy is a topical issue.
With a barrel of oil going for $76.27 on Thursday afternoon, industry experts believe that the minimum landing cost of petrol is about N1,200/l. Media reports state that a litre of petrol is N1,633 in nearby Benin Republic, N1,500 in Ghana, N1,680 in Togo, N2,011 in Cameroon, N2,042 in Burkina Faso and highest at N2,080 in Mali.
The IMF notes that the Nigerian government has restored petrol subsidy surreptitiously. The global lender, at its most recent Post Financing Assessment with Nigeria, said the Tinubu administration has “capped retail fuel and electricity prices—thus partially reversing the fuel (petrol) subsidy removal—.”
