This archive report was first published on 14 June 2020.
On April 1, 2020, Nigeria's government announced an end to its fuel subsidy system, citing economic pressures from the coronavirus pandemic.
The move aims to save the country's much-needed reserves, which have taken a major hit due to the pandemic. However, critics argue that the system's abolition may not be as straightforward as it seems.
Despite the government's insistence that the subsidy system is over, many in the industry complain that the government refuses to relinquish control. The authorities have continued to set a pricing band that they say retailers must stick to.
"Nigerians shouldn't be overcharged, that's what we are saying," said Apollo Kimchi, spokesman for the state Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency.
However, Tunji Oyebanji, chairman of the Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria, is skeptical about the government's commitment to deregulation. "We don't really understand what the government is up to," he said. "Where are (the) market forces determining price in this?"
The current scrap over the fuel subsidy is just the latest tussle about change to a system that has helped some at the top grow seriously wealthy over the years.
International lenders like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have long decried a scheme that swallows up vast sums that should otherwise be spent on sectors such as health or education.
President Muhammadu Buhari shook things up after his election in 2015 on a platform to tackle Nigeria's endemic graft. However, critics say putting the notoriously unaccountable NNPC in charge only made funds harder to trace and immense sums have continued to vanish into the system.
"Corruption has not disappeared under Buhari's administration, even if it is less rampant than under Goodluck Jonathan when traders became billionaires in five years," said Benjamin Auge, a researcher at the French Institute for International Relations.
