“The hike in fuel price has caused a scarcity of passengers,” Hanwa, 50, added. “Before the hike in fuel price, Abuja to Kano was 5,500 ($7.26) but is now 8,500 ($11.22),” he said. Successive governments had carried on with fuel subsidy since its introduction in the 1970s but had also mooted deregulating the country’s oil sector. Along with soaring transport fares, food prices and costs for other essentials have skyrocketed across the country. Economist Bismarck Rewane agrees that halting fuel subsidy “makes economic sense,” but mentions that the saved proceeds from the scheme must be ploughed back into bettering the lives of Nigerians.

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