The prices of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) popular called petrol soars as high as N400 per litre in Lagos and some other Nigerian cities.
However, it is not clear if subsidy has been gradually or systematically removed since marketers complained of not getting supply at stipulated price.
The government is paying over N1 trillion subsidy, starting from this January to March, on same fuel being bought at high prices by Nigerians. It paid over N1.9 trillion on subsidy between January and April, 2022.
Before this, Nigeria, Africa’s biggest exporter of crude oil, has since the last quarter of 2022 been battling fuel crisis with many stations and marketers selling the product at N250 per litre while queues were seen at a few stations that dispensed the product at N175 per litre.
While the first group who are majorly the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) and major marketers franchise stations hiked the price from N175 to N200 per litre, the second group consisting of independent marketers increased their prices from N250 to between N300 and N400 Per Litre.
There were long queues at major filling stations in Lagos including Mobil, TotalEnergies, NIPCO, and NNPC who sold the product at N169 per litre on Wednesday but sold at N184 on Thursday owing to increase in pump price.
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