A war you didn't vote for is already in your kitchen

America and Israel struck Iran last Saturday. By Tuesday, you were paying for it.

Not metaphorically. Literally. Dangote Refinery raised its ex-depot price by ₦100 per litre — from ₦774 to ₦874 — within 72 hours of the strikes. NNPC stations in Abuja moved to ₦960. Cooking gas, which averaged ₦800 per kilogram last week, is now ₦950 at major distributors. Economists are already projecting ₦1,000+ per litre by April if the conflict continues.

This is the trap nobody told you about when subsidy removal was announced.

The argument for removing fuel subsidies was always about delinking Nigeria's economy from global oil price volatility. Let the market decide. Nigeria would benefit when prices rise, since we're an oil producer. What that argument quietly left out: without subsidies, every global spike passes directly and immediately to you. There's no buffer. No cushion. The market moves, you move with it — whether you're ready or not.

Here's the part that should make you sit up. Nigeria's 2026 budget was built on an oil benchmark of $64.85 per barrel. Brent crude is already above $84. Nigeria earns more per barrel — but actual production is running closer to 1.58 million barrels per day, below the 1.84 million the budget assumed. So the windfall isn't what it looks like on paper. And the pain at the pump is completely real.

The Strait of Hormuz carries roughly 20% of global oil and LNG supply. Iran attacked oil installations in Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Qatar has partially shut down LNG production. The shipping routes that carry the world's energy are either closed or in chaos. Nigeria didn't start this war and has no vote in how it ends. But Nigeria is paying the entrance fee anyway.

Nigeria is an oil-producing country that imports refined fuel. That structural contradiction — the one politicians have promised to fix for thirty years — is why a war in the Persian Gulf shows up as a number on your gas cylinder by Tuesday morning.

The National Assembly resumes plenary today after weeks of budget defence sessions. The 2026 budget they're debating was already obsolete before this week. The assumptions it was built on — oil price, production volume, exchange rate — have all shifted. Nobody will rewrite the budget. They'll pass it as is. And the gap between what the government assumed and what you're actually paying will keep widening.