Daily petrol consumption crashes by 92% under Tinubu as hardship bites – Report

The daily consumption of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) otherwise known as petrol by Nigerians has dropped drastically since President Bola Tinubu assumed office on May 29, 2023.

According to data obtained from the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Product Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), the Daily Truck Out Report showed that consumption as of August 20, 2024 stood at 4.5 million litres per day.

This NMDPRA data also showed that daily petrol consumption as of May 2023 was 60, 000 million litres per day, with estimation bringing daily consumption down by 92% after May 29, 2023.

A further probe of the report threw up a shocking revelation as only 16 out of the 36 states of the federation got product allocation from the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) in the month under review.

This indicated that those states that didn’t get product allocation suffered petrol scarcity in August.

A breakdown of NNPCL product distribution among the 16 states showed that Niger received the highest allocation of 21 trucks amounting to 940,000 litres daily. Lagos came second with 12 trucks amounting to 726,001 litres and Kaduna got 12 trucks of 454,001 litres.

Other states such as Oyo got 12 trucks of 454 litres, Kano nine trucks, Ondo six trucks, Kwara six trucks, Edo four trucks, and FCT four trucks.

NNPCL supplied four trucks to Sokoto, three to Ogun, and Osun, while Gombe, Benue, Ekiti, and Kebbi all got one truck each.

Subsidy removal shoots up petrol price

Recall that Tinubu announced the end of the petrol subsidy regime on his first day in office, confining the policy, which at the time had gulped about N12 trillion in 10 years to the bin.

The President explained that petrol subsidy payment was no longer sustainable as it had plunged the country into huge debts, with most beneficiaries being the rich elites.

The move triggered an immediate price increase as the pump price of petrol galloped from N185 to over N600 and more recently to N1300 per litre across the country.

This, and the floatation of the naira, has pushed headline inflation to an almost three-decade high of 34.19% in June. It decelerated in July and August but spiked again in September due to another increase in petrol prices.

Meanwhile, the resultant high cost of living has plunged no fewer than 129 million Nigerians into multidimensional poverty, according to the latest data released by the World Bank.

The global financial body said over 129 million Nigerians represented a sharp rise from 40.1 per cent in 2018 to 56 per cent in 2024.

“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,” the World Bank report partly read.

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.”

Nigerians abandon cars as hardship hits harder

At the same time, a report by French news agency, AFP, detailed how Nigerians have been forced to abandon their cars as a result of the debilitating hardship.

Emmanuel, a 72-year-old retired health worker said, “I parked it at my son’s house. I use public transport now,” adding “It is not convenient, but it is what the economy demands.”

Car dealers in Lagos and Abuja told AFP that there’s a continuing rise in cases of 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.