Nigeria in Fuel Crisis as President-Elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu Steps into Power
After winning the 2023 presidential elections on Mar 1, 2023, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu got sworn into power on May 29, 2023. His first act of removing the fuel subsidy as the newly elected president however has thrown the nation into turmoil.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu had previously announced the removal of the long-debated subsidy that had cost almost $10 billion last year during his inauguration speech on Monday, May 29, 2023.
Since then, the entire nation has been waiting desperately to see how the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) would respond to the fuel subsidy removal as their response and the new price would determine the rate at which other retail companies would sell theirs.
Given that the NNPC currently holds a monopoly on petrol supply in Nigeria, it is anticipated that other fuel marketers will follow suit and align their pump prices with those set by the NNPC.
Nigeria in Fuel Crisis: Fuel Subsidy and Its Effect
On Wednesday, May 31, 2023, NNPC Limited affected the new changes brought about by the fuel subsidy removal by selling petrol at N488 per litre in Lagos, N537 a litre in Abuja, and N511 per litre in Port Harcourt.
Experts suggest that because NNPC has implemented varying pump prices in different cities, it indicates that both the subsidy and the inefficient price equalization system, which used to maintain the same official petrol price throughout Nigeria, may have been removed.
We don’t know for sure which FX exchange rate NNPC used to determine their pump price, but it could be approximately N600 per dollar.
On Tuesday afternoon, President Bola Tinubu resumed at Aso Rock and had a lengthy meeting with the CEO of NNPC, Mele Kolo Kyari, and the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele.
They discussed the challenging issues of fuel subsidy and the use of multiple foreign exchange rates in their meeting.
This was on President Bola Tinubu’s first day in office after publicly stating that the fuel subsidy was no longer in effect in his inauguration speech and taking action by instructing the CBN to eliminate the practice of having multiple exchange rates.
The fuel crisis in Nigeria today has the entire nation in upheaval as this was not the “renewed hope” the newly elected president had promised the nation during his presidential campaign and many are starting to worry if this is how the country will be for the next four years.
Since the price of petrol has more than doubled, the prices of food items have also taken an exponential leap, leaving many mothers and youths distraught about how to feed themselves and their families.
As a result of the fuel crisis in Nigeria today, transport fares have also increased and many Nigerians have been seen trekking on the streets of Lagos yesterday because of the price hikes and traffic jams from the long queues at petrol stations where private companies are allegedly selling petrol at N700/litre.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu promised the nation that he would be “breaking shackles”. We can only wait to see if this will be another decorated lie or if the new government of the day will fulfill its promises this time.
Will these crises be the new norm for the Federal Republic of Nigeria? Only time will tell.
All images are sourced from google
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