Predictably, the suspension of the 15 percent petrol import duty by the Federal Government has been applauded. Having to bear several months of high fuel prices and raising transport fares, of course any gesture that promises relief is bound to stir hope among struggling Nigerians. But behind the public cheer lies a harsher, unavoidable question: is this genuine relief, or just another round of political optics meant to pacify an already weary populace?
To a government that had promised economic stability, the unending increase in the cost of fuel became the symbol of its policy contradictions. From the removal of subsidy to the continuous volatility of the naira, the average Nigerian had paid for every “reform.” The 15% duty was one more layer of burden that undermined the very productivity the government said it encourages. Now, suspending it looks like a corrective step. But timing and context are everything.
The suspension comes at a time when public frustration has reached a fever pitch, transport fares are at an all-time high, and many sectors are shrinking under the weight of unbearable energy costs. What Nigerians wonder is not whether the suspension is good, but why it was imposed in the first place, and why it took this long to recognize its destructiveness.
If the government is genuinely keen on reducing costs, it should not be imposing new fiscal burdens with one hand and offering temporary reprieve with the other. And if the controversial 2026 tax reforms are scheduled to come into effect in a couple of months, many citizens are thus right to wonder whether this suspension is merely a sugarcoating to soften an impending avalanche of new taxes, levies, and compliance pressures.
Scrapping a duty may ease landing costs, but it does not eradicate structural failures that keep fuel prices volatile: variable exchange rates, underdeveloped local refining, nontransparent pricing mechanisms, and chronic mismanagement. If the roots are not fixed, duty suspension will remain a mere political expression of empathy without engagement with the real demons in the system.
What Nigeria requires is policy coherence, not policy drama. Fuel pricing must be transparent, consistent, and anchored in long-term reform, not episodic gestures designed to calm public anger. Government’s role is not to make life harder and then expect praise for momentarily making it less hard. This suspension may bring brief relief, but unless the federal authorities show a bolder, more honest commitment to economic stability, Nigerians will continue to live in a cycle of policy-induced suffering. And that is no victory; it is governance by optics.
