President Bola Tinubu’s directive for the rollout of another 500 compressed natural gas (CNG) refuelling stations across Nigeria, with a promise of lower transport fares from October 1, is welcome. But it also raises an uncomfortable question: why did it take a presidential directive for state governors to begin confronting a problem that has been crushing their people for years? Nigerians have endured soaring transport fares, rising food prices and declining purchasing power since the removal of petrol subsidy. The governors have watched this pain unfold from their offices, yet meaningful state-led interventions to reduce transportation costs have been painfully inadequate.
The governors now say they are considering reducing transport fares through the National Affordable CNG Transit Programme. But where have they been since the subsidy was removed? The subsidy removal was not announced yesterday. It fundamentally changed the cost of living and transportation across the country. If CNG offered a cheaper alternative, why did state governments not aggressively pursue conversion of their mass-transit systems, support transport operators and establish state-level programmes years ago? Why wait until Nigerians are angry, impoverished and increasingly disillusioned before discovering that cheaper transportation is possible?
There is an even bigger question about money. State governments have received significantly more revenue since the removal of petrol subsidy. Federation Account allocations increased substantially as the federal government stopped paying the enormous subsidy bill and more distributable revenue became available. Governors therefore cannot convincingly present themselves as helpless victims of the same economic crisis confronting ordinary Nigerians. They have had additional fiscal resources at their disposal. The question Nigerians should be asking is simple: what have the governors done with the additional money? Where are the mass-transit buses, CNG conversion programmes, transport subsidies and other practical interventions that should have followed?
Instead, ordinary citizens have been left to absorb the shock. Workers spend a frightening proportion of their salaries on transportation. Students struggle to get to school. Traders increase the prices of goods because transporting those goods has become more expensive. Farmers face higher costs moving produce from rural communities to urban markets. The consequences are not abstract economic statistics; they are visible every morning at motor parks and bus stops across the states. The governors cannot continue to preach palliatives while failing to address the structural causes of the hardship.
The timing of this latest intervention also deserves scrutiny. With the 2027 general elections only months away, the sudden urgency to deliver cheaper transportation inevitably invites political questions. Why now? If the administration and the governors genuinely believed that CNG could reduce transport costs by 60 to 80 percent, as the President says, why was this not aggressively implemented much earlier? Nigerians are entitled to wonder whether this is primarily a carefully planned economic intervention or a late political response to growing public anger over the cost of living.
President Tinubu deserves credit for pushing the governors to act, but the states must not hide behind the federal government. Transportation is largely a state and local concern, particularly intra-state transportation, which the President himself acknowledged. Governors have enormous influence over public transportation within their jurisdictions. They can procure buses, support conversion centres, negotiate with transport unions, create state-backed transit schemes and use their increased revenues to cushion the impact on citizens. They do not need Abuja to tell them every time that their people are suffering. Leadership means seeing the problem and acting before the crisis becomes politically dangerous.
The latest CNG announcement may therefore be useful, but Nigerians should judge it by results, not speeches. One thousand refuelling stations on paper will mean little if transport fares remain unaffordable, conversion infrastructure is inaccessible and the benefits never reach commuters. The governors must explain what they have done with the additional revenues they received since subsidy removal and why meaningful transport relief was delayed until now. If cheaper fuel can genuinely produce cheaper fares, then deliver it. But if this is merely another pre-election promise designed to calm an increasingly frustrated electorate, Nigerians will see through it. The people do not need another announcement. They need relief—and they needed it years ago.
