Opinions
When government delays pain without clarity: Nigeria’s fuel surcharge limbo
By Lemmy Ughegbe, Ph.D
The Federal Government’s announcement that the five per cent fuel surcharge would not commence in January 2026 as earlier stated was received with relief in some quarters, but also with confusion and suspicion. Relief, because Nigerians are already reeling under a cost of living crisis and the thought of another increase in fuel costs felt unbearable.
Confusion, because the Finance Minister Wale Edun, who made the disclosure, did not give any clear date for when the surcharge would be implemented. Suspicion, because Nigerians have learnt to decode these deferrals not as protection but as delay tactics, a way of muting public outrage without resolving the underlying issue.
This ambiguity is deeply unsettling. In effect, government has not spared Nigerians the burden of the surcharge, it has only suspended it indefinitely.
The uncertainty itself becomes a weight. Families and businesses know the surcharge could strike at any time, like a sword of Damocles hanging over their heads, eroding trust in policymaking and aggravating public anxiety.
What should have been a straightforward announcement of reform has instead become another symbol of Nigeria’s governance malaise. It exposes a troubling habit of rolling out policies without sufficient consultation, communication or social cushioning, then backtracking in the face of backlash, only to leave citizens stranded in limbo. This cycle corrodes confidence in leadership and reduces reform to a political chess game rather than a coherent national strategy.
It is important to be clear about what this surcharge entails. The Minister was right to note that the provision dates back to a 2007 law, and its inclusion in the new Nigeria Tax Act was more a clarification than a novel measure.
Yet laws do not exist in isolation. Policy must be judged in its context. Nigerians today are staggering under the combined weight of subsidy removal, naira floatation, soaring inflation, electricity tariff hikes and the silent tax of insecurity. In such a climate, timing is everything. And the timing of this surcharge could not have been more punishing.
That is why the government blinked. But the absence of a new date means Nigerians remain in suspense. This is not a reprieve, it is a postponement without horizon. The real question remains unanswered: when will government decide to impose this charge, and what will it do in the meantime to ease the suffering of its citizens?
Nigeria’s fiscal stress is undeniable. Debt servicing swallows a disproportionate share of national revenue, oil earnings are below potential despite recent recovery, and non oil revenues lag woefully. In such a scenario, the temptation to squeeze more revenue from fuel consumption is strong. But economics cannot be divorced from social realities.
Transport fares have more than doubled in many places since subsidy removal, pushing up food prices. Small businesses are drowning in generator costs. Households already ration meals and forego healthcare. For them, a surcharge is not a technical adjustment in law; it is an existential threat.
Government’s decision to withhold the surcharge’s start date is politically pragmatic but economically incoherent. Investors and citizens alike crave predictability. By leaving the implementation vague, policymakers invite speculation, uncertainty and fear. Businesses cannot plan. Families cannot budget. And government appears indecisive, reactive rather than strategic.
Nigeria is not the first time to mishandle fuel taxation. Successive governments have lurched from subsidy removal to subsidy reintroduction, from tax promises to policy retreats, always with more noise than vision.
Ghana in 2019 attempted to raise fuel levies but retreated under mass protests. Kenya in 2023 faced similar backlash when it doubled VAT on fuel, sparking legal and political crises. Yet in South Africa, fuel taxes have been more stable, partly because citizens can see their returns in stronger social welfare programmes.
The difference is not merely technical but political: Nigerians distrust government promises because they rarely see visible results from their sacrifices.
When citizens ask “sacrifice for what?”, it is not cynicism. It is survival logic. They remember that in times of high oil prices, when Nigeria earned unprecedented revenues, poverty still worsened and infrastructure still decayed. They look at countries like Norway, which saved oil wealth for future generations in a trillion dollar sovereign fund, or Botswana, which channelled diamond revenues into education and health, and they wonder why Nigeria consistently squanders its opportunities.
Consider the market woman in Abuja who spends twice as much transporting her yams from the farm to the stall, only to find that her customers cannot afford the inflated price. Or the welder in Enugu whose generator costs exceed his daily income. Or the schoolteacher in Kano who has cut household meals from three to two a day.
For these citizens, government’s decision not to implement a surcharge in January 2026 is no victory. It is merely an indefinite extension of dread.
The absence of clarity also undermines accountability. When no date is fixed, government avoids scrutiny. Citizens cannot prepare, civil society cannot mobilise, and opposition parties cannot hold officials to account. Policy drifts into opacity, and the people are kept guessing. This is a dangerous way to govern, for it reduces democracy to a guessing game instead of a dialogue between leaders and citizens.
Reform, if it must be undertaken, should be anchored in transparency and reciprocity. Government cannot ask citizens to pay more without showing clearly how such revenue will improve their lives. If a surcharge is to fund public transport, rural clinics, or school feeding, Nigerians must see these benefits in action, not on paper. Communication must be proactive, not reactive. Consultation must precede announcement, not follow outrage. Above all, leaders themselves must demonstrate sacrifice by cutting the waste, luxury and excess that mock the call for ordinary Nigerians to tighten their belts.
As things stand, the government’s approach erodes both investor confidence and public trust. Investors want predictable policy environments; they cannot plan around indecision. Citizens want sincerity; they cannot bear perpetual uncertainty. By postponing without clarity, government has delivered neither stability nor relief.
The decision on the surcharge is therefore more than an economic footnote. It is a litmus test of Nigeria’s governance character. Will we continue with fire brigade policymaking, lurching from crisis to crisis, or will we build a deliberate framework where taxation, spending and welfare are coherently aligned? History suggests caution, but history also offers lessons. Countries that have succeeded in reform have done so not by avoiding pain, but by linking pain to progress in ways that citizens can see and trust.
Until Nigerian leaders grasp this truth, every postponement will remain a deferred disaster, every surcharge a source of dread, and every promise an exercise in political survival rather than national renewal. The ambiguity surrounding the fuel surcharge is not harmless. It is corrosive. It leaves Nigerians not only poorer, but more uncertain, trapped in a cycle where government’s thoughtless insensitivity and indiscretion compound their hardship.
The Minister may not have announced a date, but Nigerians already know what that means. The burden has not been lifted. It has only been shifted into the fog of the future as like a thief in the night it will invade them brutally.
Lemmy Ughegbe, writes from Abuja
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Phone: +2348069716645
