Nigerians have been experiencing extreme gasoline shortages since at least early February, leaving many citizens unable to drive to work and thus devastating manufacturing and other key sectors of the economy. The little gasoline available has doubled in price between January and March, becoming financially unattainable for many in the country. Commercial airliners warned this week that they were days away from running out of fuel, potentially grounding all civilian planes in the country.
The fuel shortages are especially frustrating to Nigerians as the country is Africa’s largest oil producer and an OPEC member nation. While rich in crude oil, Nigeria has very few facilities for refining the oil into serviceable fuel products, meaning it also imports almost all of its gasoline and jet fuel. The few refining facilities it does have face regular attacks from armed gangs that often leave them inoperable for days.
The electric grid failures, which are increasingly becoming regular occurrences, appear to be partly the result of poor maintenance. Nigerian Minister of Power Abubakar Aliyu blamed the latest outages this week, however, also on the fuel crisis, claiming that “vandalization” of oil pipelines to steal fuel had also damaged electric infrastructure. Some reports also blamed “weeks of bickering among operators” for the electric grid’s woeful performance.
