By Sani Ibrahim
Following the latest fuel price hike announced by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) last week, residents of Abuja, Nigeria’s capital have joined millions of Nigerians to lament the increase, saying that it is negatively affecting their lives.
NNPCL has announced the increase just as the Dangote refinery, built by Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, finally began offloading of the fuel last week.
However, as Nigerians were happy with this development, with a full hope that the price will be even lower, the news of the new increment just hit them.
When Africa Housing TV toured the major streets of Abuja, our reporter observed many people opting for trekking as transport fare has become even more exorbitant.
Some residents who spoke to our reporter expressed their concern with the increase, saying that it has further pushed inflation forward.
John Adebayo, a civil servant who lives around Apo mechanic village and has to commute to work around federal secretariat with his car everyday now says he has since dropped the car as he cannot fuel it.
According to him, “Before this latest increase, we were managing life, now, it is almost impossible to carry my car to work as the rate of the fuel it will consume every month is almost 70 percent of my salary. So you see that is not realistic any more.
“What of other basic needs of life such as rent payment, buying food for the family, offsetting children’s school fees and paying for their medication when they fall seek? To be honest, some of my colleagues are already considering resigning to pursue some things instead,” Adebayo added.
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Similarly, Aishatu Musa, a businesswoman in the popular Wuse market in the city said prices of commodities have already increased and their sales have dropped significantly.
“The volume of sales we use to have has dropped significantly, people’s purchasing power has reduced as they only buy basic necessities. Most of the time, we just sit here and gist until it is closing time. Nigerians are really suffering,” she lamented.
In the Gudu construction materials market, the story is not different from that of Wuse as people no longer buy building materials as they used to do before the latest increase.
Uche Arinze, who sells cement at the market, said the new increase may likely push its price even higher and the volume of their sales has also decreased.
Africa Housing TV also noted a lot of people trekking, which according to them, they are doing so to save cost and cope with the reality of the increment.
“My transport fare has increased by almost 300 Naira on top of the 700 that I used to pay before and my salary has not increased. So my only option now is to trek in order to save the cost,” said Aliyu Umar, a civil servant.
Our reporter observed that aside the NNPCL filling stations that sale at N904, other commercial filling station jerked up their price to as much as N1,000 in some areas.
However, there is still hope that the price may decrease in October as hinted by NNPCL the current price is due to the fact that Dangote Refinery bought crude oil in US Dollar, while from October first, they will start buying it in Nigerian Naira.
This, according to analysts, is due to the fact that buying it in Naira will save the price from the foreign currency’s constant fluctuation.