₦airaland Forum

Crude prices are set on global markets. When war in the Middle East drives them up, every fuel-importing country pays. Governments with buffers—price caps, subsidies, or temporary tax relief—can soften the blow. Dozens of countries are doing exactly that, according to the IEA. Nigeria, by deliberate choice, entered this crisis with none.

When the fuel subsidy was removed in 2023, the promise was clear: the savings would fund transport, health and education, and the market would eventually stabilise prices. What Nigerians received instead was a pump price locked to both global crude and the naira. Now that crude is being pushed higher by a war Nigeria has no part in, the average Abuja commuter, okada rider and market woman is paying the bill directly.

Petrol is not just petrol in Nigeria. It moves food from Benue to Kubwa market, powers generators when the grid fails, and determines the fare for every trip. When fuel rises, everything rises.

The same Axios article notes that poorer countries with limited fiscal space, high youth unemployment and existing inflation are being squeezed hardest. Kenya’s protests are the warning. Nigeria shares the same combustible mix: stubborn inflation, massive youth unemployment, and wages that stopped keeping pace years ago. Even the Atlantic Council scholar quoted in the piece argues that subsidies should be tapered carefully, because sudden price spikes invite unrest. Nigeria did the opposite. The subsidy was scrapped in a single announcement, without functioning local refineries, affordable mass transit, or CNG at scale to cushion the shock.

That is Atiku’s point. No serious person claims the old subsidy was perfect. It leaked money and largely benefited smugglers and the politically connected. Reform was overdue. The failure was the method: abrupt removal before local refining capacity and meaningful palliatives were in place, leaving ordinary households to absorb every external shock. With the Iran conflict still unresolved, the cost of that decision continues to land on Nigerian families, not on those who made it.

Defenders of the removal counter that the old subsidy was already costing trillions, mostly captured by middlemen, and would be even less sustainable at today’s crude prices. The IMF warns that price supports can harden into permanent fiscal holes. Many economists argue the real problem was the weak rollout, not the principle of removal itself.
Both sides can be true at once. The subsidy needed to go. The way it was removed left millions of Nigerians standing naked in a storm they did not create.

https://www.axios.com/2026/09/19/iran-war-global-pain-fuel-prices

We have ourselves a runner

There's no fuel subsidy ever in the history of every other subsaharan country.

How is Ghana's, Senegal , Ivory Coast , Namibia, South Africa, etc economies doing well without fuel subsidies ?

You are just getting to understand that an undue and highly wasteful govt subsidy has been the only thing propping Nigeria's slim economic advantage .

ATIKU IS VERY WRONG. SUBSIDY IS GONE WAS A PRESIDENTIAL ORDER ASTUTELY GIVEN AND IT IS GOOD.

I believe this is going to be a long thread.

orisa37:
ATIKU IS VERY WRONG. SUBSIDY IS GONE WAS A PRESIDENTIAL ORDER ASTUTELY GIVEN AND IT IS GOOD.

Where is the money from the subsidy removal.
It was meant to make prices cheaper where is it?