Nigerians have resulted to panic-buying fuel after the remarks by Nigeria’s new president Bola Tinubu at his inauguration on Monday that fuel subsidies were to be removed .
president Tinubu gave no time frame or any more details of this major policy move ,but it has sparked panic buying..
“It only favors’ the rich and not the poor and has become increasingly expensive to maintain,” Mr. Tinubu told the crowd in Abuja, the country’s capital.
Given the uncertainty about whether the subsidy removal was effective immediately, people have rushed out to stock up.
Nigeria’s state-owned oil company, the sole importer of petroleum products, assured the public that it had enough supplies.
Economists say the removal of subsidies will lead to the higher cost of transportation, an increase in production costs and commodity prices.
Nigeria is Africa’s second-largest producer of oil, behind Angola, but imports more than 90% of its fuel needs owing to its inability to refine enough locally.