Nigeria will keep its costly but popular petrol subsidy until mid-2023 and has set aside 3.36 trillion naira ($7.5 bln) to spend on it, Finance Minister Zainab Ahmed said yesterday.

Africa’s biggest economy spent 2.91 trillion naira ($7 billion) towards a petrol subsidy between January and September 2022, state-owned firm NNPC said, a cost the government has blamed for dwindling public finances.

President Muhammadu Buhari signed the 2023 budget of 21.83 trillion naira ($49 billion) into law on Tuesday after lawmakers increased the size by 6.4 per cent and raised the oil price assumption.

“Petrol subsidy will remain up to mid-2023 based on the 18-month extension announced early 2022,” Ahmed said.

Buhari said in October that the country would stop the petrol subsidy in 2023, when he steps down after Nigerians vote for a new leader in February.

EFCC secures 3,785 convictions in 2022

Successive governments in Nigeria have tried and failed to remove or cut the subsidy, a politically sensitive issue in the country of 200 million people.