Petrol sells for N600 per litre; queues, scarcity returns after Tinubu’s ‘fuel subsidy is gone’ statement

Nigerians are once again experiencing unpleasant and challenging times moving around their various destinations after President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s inaugural statement signaling end of the subsidy regime. 

“Subsidy is gone,” Tinubu declared during his inauguration address at Eagle Square in Abuja, immediately after being sworn in as Nigeria’s 16th President on Monday.

According to the President, there is no provision for subsidy in the national budget beginning in June 2023, so it is no longer in effect.

Tinubu disclosed at his inauguration on Monday in Abuja that his administration’s minimum GDP growth target is 6% per year.

He also promised to will lead the country with “compassion and amity towards all.”

“In economy, we’ll target not less than 6 per cent growth in GDP growth. We’ll do this through budgetary reforms. We’ll use a full range of domestic manufacturing and lessen importation,” Tinubu said in his inaugural address at Eagle Square, Abuja.

He promised to boost foreign direct investment by reviewing all complaints about multiple taxations.

“To our foreign investors, our government will review all complaints about multiple taxations. All businesses will be allowed to repatriate hard-earned profits back home,” Tinubu added.

However, his statement was met with lengthy queues and commuters resorted to panic buying in filling stations in major cities across the states.

A drive round Lagos from the Mainland to the Island, Lekki, Festac on Tuesday and early this morning (Wednesday) by the NewsClick Nigeria team saw several filling stations shut while those managing to selling had hundreds of vehicles and kegs to attend to. Our team also observed that a litre of the Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) in some filling stations sold for N600/litre instead of the N185/litre approved price.

“Isn’t this pain too early in the life of an administration that his less than 48 hours old. How can a President just momentarily send such damaging message to his people? Yes, the fuel subsidy should go but is this how the implementation should be? I can’t go to work yesterday neither is it certain that  I am going today because of this crisis. Trust the system to take advantage of any policy misfire. I pray we get out of this deliberate pain caused by a new president alive,” a distraught customer who has been on queue for over six hours told NewsClick Nigeria team in one of the filling stations visited.

 

His pronouncement was hasty 

Meanwhile, reactions and calls from listeners on different radio stations monitored by NewsClick Nigeria in Lagos Tuesday and Wednesday morning had cross section of them complaining bitterly about what they described as a ‘hasty pronouncement’ with many saying

“As beautiful as the President speech was, his pronouncement that ‘subsidy is gone’ was hasty and not well thought out,” a listener on a radio station remarked

Another caller said: “I consider it a play to the gallery for some decisions to be made through inaugural speeches. How much of the intestines of the government you could claim to know at that moment? Even if you were part of the immediate past government (be it as Vice President or whatever), taking decisions on the field of inauguration without and before getting to see the state of what you are inheriting isn’t a tidy approach, in my view. What was the urgency about that announcement that it could not wait beyond the first day and outside the inauguration venue?”.

“Queues at filling stations aren’t a nice way for this government to start off. Fuel scarcity in Nigeria always bites to the nation’s marrow. Every stratum of the nation feels it immediately. Nigerians looked forward to seeing reduction in pump price (if feasible) from BAT’s government, not another torture,” a female caller submitted.

However, a male caller on another radio station said the President was right to have revealed his intention from day one. He said the people to blame should be the marketers who are bent on sabotaging the government.

“Until a couple of marketers are sent to jail and their outlets acquired by the government for overriding public purposes, upon being nabbed for wickedly hoarding fuel to create artificial scarcity, no one will sit up. Sometimes, mad administrators like El-Rufai are needed to check some madness,” he said.