June 17, 2023 Since Nigeria’s new president Bola Ahmed Tinubu abruptly ended his country’s long-standing subsidy on petrol two weeks ago, prices of black market fuel over the border in Benin have als
o doubled.”Sitting on top of a yellow jerry can of fuel, Jeannine waits for customers on a sidewalk in Benin’s economic capital Cotonou, but business is slow. The motorbikes and cars she normally supplies are no longer stopping to stock up on her cheap gasoline, which is smuggled in from neighbouring Nigeria.
According to AFP, two weeks ago, a litre of “Kpayo,” the smuggled gasoline sold on the side of Beninese roads, doubled from 350 to 700 CFA francs . That is now higher than the petrol in service stations at the market price of around 650 CFA a litre. For decades, Nigeria’s low-cost gasoline has been transported illegally by road to its neighbours, primarily Benin, where it is resold on the black market by a multitude of informal sellers.
Victorien Assogba Kossi, wearing a yellow shirt like all the zemidjans of Cotonou, wonders “what is wrong with Nigeria?”“We’re going to pray to God that it goes down,” said the 46-year-old man, who says he was forced to cut corn rations for his children when business slowed. This is good news for the Beninese State, which hopes to increase its tax revenue, as informal sellers do not pay tax.
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