Former presidential candidate Peter Obi has described Nigeria’s fuel subsidy system as organised crime and raised pointed questions about the accuracy of the country’s reported fuel consumption data, challenging the government to explain the discrepancy between Nigeria’s claimed consumption levels and what comparative analysis with similarly sized economies suggested was plausible.
Speaking during an interview on Trust TV, Obi said available empirical evidence contradicted the large volumes of petrol that Nigeria officially claimed to consume, arguing that the gap between stated consumption and what the country could realistically use pointed to systematic abuse within the subsidy regime.
He drew a specific comparison with Pakistan, describing both countries as broadly similar in population and vehicle stock while noting that Pakistan’s reported fuel consumption was approximately a third of Nigeria’s. “We are about the same as Pakistan. They have more roads and probably the same number of vehicles, or even more, yet their fuel consumption is a third of ours. So who is drinking the balance?” he said.
Obi said the subsidy structure had created fertile conditions for fraud and misuse that he would not tolerate under his leadership, stressing that beyond simply ending the subsidy, any credible reform had to examine consumption figures rigorously and close the loopholes that had enabled years of exploitation before and after that removal.
