The Subsidy Is Back — Nigeria's Worst-Kept Secret and the NNPC Numbers That Don't Add Up

On May 29, 2023, President Bola Tinubu stood at Eagle Square in Abuja and delivered the four words that would define the early months of his presidency: "Subsidy is gone." The crowd cheered. The naira tanked. Petrol prices tripled overnight. Nigerians braced for the pain that economists had long argued was necessary.

Three years later, The Trojan Beast has spent six weeks reviewing NNPC quarterly reports, Central Bank of Nigeria foreign exchange data, and confidential briefings from three sources inside the petroleum sector. What we found raises a question the Tinubu administration has not answered: is the subsidy actually gone — or has it simply changed its name?

The Numbers That Don't Add Up

At current global crude oil prices and the official naira exchange rate, the true landing cost of a litre of petrol in Nigeria should be between ₦1,450 and ₦1,620. Pump prices at major filling stations in Lagos, Abuja, and Port Harcourt are running between ₦950 and ₦1,050. The gap — between ₦400 and ₦670 per litre — has to be covered by someone.

NNPC's published accounts for the first quarter of 2026 show a ₦2.1 trillion "price modulation adjustment" line item. The corporation has declined to explain this figure in detail. Three petroleum sector analysts who reviewed the accounts for The Trojan Beast independently described it as a subsidy by another name.

"Call it a price modulation adjustment, call it a strategic intervention — the economic effect is identical to a subsidy. Someone is bridging the gap between market price and pump price. That someone is the Nigerian state."

— Senior petroleum economist, speaking on condition of anonymity

The Dangote Factor

The opening of the Dangote Refinery was supposed to change everything. Domestic refining capacity, the argument went, would eliminate the import dependency that made the old subsidy so ruinously expensive. The refinery is now producing. But the pricing dynamics have not resolved as cleanly as the government's projections suggested.

Sources familiar with the Dangote-NNPC supply agreement tell The Trojan Beast that the refinery is selling to NNPC at a price that requires downstream price support to reach the consumer at politically acceptable levels. The refinery, in other words, is profitable. The consumer price, however, is still being managed — and the management costs money.

The Political Calculation

With the 2027 election cycle now formally underway, the political logic of quiet price support is not hard to read. The administration that removed the subsidy and triggered the cost-of-living crisis cannot afford to let petrol prices spike again in an election year. The pain of 2023 is still fresh. A second price shock would be politically catastrophic.

Senior APC sources who spoke to The Trojan Beast on background confirmed that petrol pricing is "actively managed at the highest level" and that any decision to allow prices to fully reflect market costs will not happen before the 2027 election. "Nobody is going to hand the opposition that weapon," one source said.

What the Government Says

The Trojan Beast put detailed questions to the Ministry of Finance, NNPC, and the State House. The Ministry of Finance did not respond. NNPC issued a statement saying its pricing "reflects the dynamics of the deregulated downstream sector." The State House said the administration "remains committed to the full deregulation of the petroleum sector."

None of the three addressed the specific ₦2.1 trillion "price modulation adjustment" figure or the gap between landing costs and pump prices.

The Verdict

The subsidy Tinubu abolished in 2023 was a ₦12 trillion annual drain on the federal treasury, a corruption-riddled system that enriched importers and starved public services. Nobody serious is arguing for its return in that form. But the evidence reviewed by The Trojan Beast suggests that the replacement — quieter, less transparent, buried in NNPC's accounts — is a subsidy in everything but name. Nigerians deserve to know what it costs, who authorised it, and how long it will last. So far, they are getting none of those answers.