Aside that it’s really difficult to police or check (because the incentives is just too much, people will do anything to smuggle it). There are more other data-driven reasons why subsidy had to go. 1- Data shows that the bulk of subsidy money did not go to the poor masses who actually need it. The World Bank’s Nigeria Public Finance Review found that the poorest 40% of Nigerians accounted for only about 3% of subsidized petrol consumption, while the top 40% accounted for roughly 20%. Its also just common sense, between an average man who only need fuel to power his generator or small generator or old Camry car, and a rich man who travels with 3 exotic (V6 engine) car convoy, who benefits more? 2- Also when you look at poverty distribution it just makes sense. Nigeria’s poverty rate stood at 63%. What most people don’t know is that 51%+ (more than half) of this number are children below the age of 18, and 65%+ of this number lives in rural north. By how much do you think multidimensionally poor under-18 children or people who trek mostly and use hoes and cutlass to farm will benefit from subsidized fuel? 3- Fuel wasn’t just cheap because of fuel subsidy, it was cheap because of subsidized dollars too. But available data shows that most of the subsidized dollars were used to import wigs, exotic wines, cars, food etc. Things that the poor and average Nigerian can’t really afford or that hurts local production. 4- Lastly, the previous subsidy arrangement would eventually kill our economy. Our population was exploding, the subsidy bill kept getting bigger every year. Yet the country is losing revenue in record numbers, businesses had to leave and foreign investors shut their door on us as it became harder. Nigeria was officially declared bankrupt in 2014. Just before the subsidy was removed we were spending up to 95% of our yearly revenue to service previously owed subsidy debt. Businesses like GSK had to leave when the government could no longer provide them the dollars they needed to import raw materials. Airlines were threathing to close their doors on us. It was a big mess. We got here because of laxity of the previous governments. Including Buhari who had the golden opportunity to remove it with less pain. Also I wouldn’t say Tinubu is smart to remove subsidy, I would say he had no choice, and if he had delayed a bit longer it would have been a disaster.