Daily usage of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) or petrol in Nigeria has declined dramatically in less than a year after President Bola Tinubu took office on May 29, 2023.
Channels Television got data from the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Product Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) Daily Truck Out Report, which indicated usage at 4.5 million litres per day on August 20, 2024.
According to the NMDPRA, daily fuel consumption was 60,000 million liters in May 2023.
According to estimates, daily consumption will drop by 92% after May 29, 2023.
The report found that only 16 of the 36 states in the federation received product allocation from Nigeran National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) during the reviewed month.
This meant that states that did not receive commodity allocation experienced scarcity in August.
A breakdown of how NNNPCL distributed the products across the 16 states revealed that Niger had the highest allocation of 21 trucks, equivalent to 940,000 litres per day, Lagos received the second highest allocation of 12 trucks, equating to 726,001 litres, and Kaduna received 12 trucks, amounting to 454,001 litres.
Other states received 454-liter trucks, including Oyo with 12 trucks, Kano with 9, Ondo with 6, Kwara with 6, Edo with 4, and the FCT with 4.
Sokoto received four trucks from the NNPCL, as did Ogun, Osun, Gombe, Benue, Ekiti, and Kebbi.
On May 29, 2023, President Tinubu declared the end of petrol subsidies, which had consumed almost N12 trillion over the previous ten years.
According to the president, paying gas subsidies was no longer sustainable because it had gotten the government into massive debt.
Petrol prices have subsequently soared from N195 per litre to almost N1300 per litre, bringing headline inflation to a near-three-decade high of 34.19 percent in June. It has recently slowed to 32.7% in September.
The cost of living has also grown, pushing 129 million Nigerians into poverty, according to the World Bank’s most recent figures.
According to the global financial authority, the over 129 million Nigerians represent a significant increase from 40.1% in 2018 to 56% in 2024.
The World Bank report read, “With growth proving too slow to outpace inflation, poverty has risen sharply. Since 2018, the share of Nigerians living below the national poverty line16 is estimated to have risen sharply from 40.1 per cent to 56.0 per cent.
“Combined with population growth, this means that some 129 million Nigerians are living in poverty. This stark increase partly reflects Nigeria’s beleaguered growth record. Real GDP per capita has not recovered to the level it was at prior to the oil price-induced recession in 2016.
“The COVID-19 pandemic compounded this drop in economic activity. Moreover, growth is failing to outpace inflation: large increases in prices across almost all goods have diminished purchasing power.”
It added, “Multiple shocks in a context of high economic insecurity have deepened and broadened poverty, with over 115 million Nigerians estimated to have been poor in 2023. Since 2018/19, an additional nearly 35 million people have fallen into poverty, so that more than half of Nigerians (51.1 per cent of the population in 2023) are now estimated to live in poverty.”
A related report by a foreign news medium, AFP, also detailed how Nigerians have since abandoned their cars as a result of the pounding hardship.
“I parked it at my son’s house. I use public transport now,” Emmanuel, a 72-year-old retired health worker, told AFP. “It is not convenient, but it is what the economy demands.”
Car dealers in Lagos and Abuja told AFP that they had seen more and more people trading their fuel-guzzling cars and sports utility vehicles (SUVs) for more efficient vehicles to cut costs.
“People are actually selling their big cars these days,” Maji Abubakar, a car dealer in Abuja, told AFP. “The problem is that even if you put them on the market, there isn’t much demand for them.”
“It has been more than a year since I sold a car with an eight-cylinder engine, and the major reason is the price of petrol,” he added.
