Nigerians are struggling to fuel their cars and commute to their workplaces a week after the Tinubu administration scrapped fuel subsidy, causing petrol prices to rise nearly threefold amid existing decades-high inflation.
The NNPC Ltd. raised prices from below N200 to N557 a litre, the widest margin of price increase of petrol in 30 years.
By Monday, the cost of filling the tank of a 70-litre car had risen from about N13,000 to over N40,000.
“Normally the price should be around N37,950 but the pumps used by these filling stations are not good. You end up paying even more,” one driver who paid N42,000 in Abuja said.
The situation is telling severely on millions without cars. Some workers who live in the FCT suburbs, paid N2000, double of the previous fare, to get to work in the Wuse area.
Some offices have given their staff the permission to work remotely, Pluboard learnt.
A trader in Kubwa, Abuja, said she paid a tricycle (Keke) N1500 to convey her goods through a distance she previously paid between N500 and N700.
“The Keke man told me N3000, so I priced and I finally paid N1500 with my goods,” the trader, Mama Funmi, said.
Another trader who travels between Suleja and Kubwa to sell dried catfish, said she had been unable to travel daily because of high cost of transportation. “I didn’t come here on Saturday because of that. Normally we pay N400 or N500, but now coming alone is N1000,” she said.
In Lagos, some workers spend as much as N4000 daily going to and returning from work. That sums to N80,000 monthly. For those earning between N100,000 and N200,000 monthly, it means a huge part of their income will be spent on transportation monthly. The minimum wage is N30,000.
“My driver filled my official car with a V6 engine for N50,000/week. What that means is I need to budget N200k every month for just one of my cars. However, for the common man, any minimum wage less than N150k ($200) is criminality. Nigerians are suffering!” a Twitter user, Omotayo Williams, said on Monday.
– Strike and cost of governance
The federal government says ending the over N4 trillion per annum fuel subsidy is needed to deliver on critical developmental projects.
But analysts say the government should start by cutting the cost of governance and not simply transfer the subsidy burden on ordinary Nigerians, most of them poor. At least 63% of Nigerians, or 133 million people, were poor as of 2022, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.
They demand policies to protect the poor if fuel subsidy is removed.
“You have to offer an improved minimum wage, subsidize public transport systems and offer options to tackle food inflation before removal,” said Seun Onigbinde, founder of Budgit, which analyses government budgets and spending.
“You should also be ready to deal in trust by reducing the cost of governance and making civil service more efficient. This is also a time for fiscal reforms and contracting efficiency. The burden can’t be on Nigerians alone. It must be shared.”
Mr Onigbinde dismissed the often-bandied claim that subsidy needs to go for the government to build roads, schools and hospitals.
“And whoever told you that subsidy is why you don’t have roads, schools and hospitals is just lying to you. As long as public expenditure is inefficiently managed through a tenderpreneur system, nothing will ever be enough.”
The Tinubu government, which is yet to form a cabinet, has not announced if it has plans for the poor.
The Nigerian Labour Congress and the Trade Union Congress say they will begin a general strike on Wednesday if the government fails to reverse to the old price. Electricity and judiciary workers have announced their readiness to join the strike.
On Sunday, the TUC met with representatives of the government with no resolution of the matter. Former Lagos commissioner for information, Dele Alake, who spoke on behalf of the government, said the government would consider one of the demands of the group which is to increase workers’ salary.
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