Thursday 16 April, 2026
Nigerian airlines have four days. The electricity fix isn't working. A general is dead.
Nigerian fuel marketers have priced domestic airlines out of the sky. Monday is the deadline. Every major carrier is on the shutdown notice. And the same week this happened, the government's electricity plan produced falling generation, not rising supply.
These are not separate stories. Jet A1 and natural gas for power plants both move through the same deregulated downstream. The same pricing logic that is grounding flights has been starving the grid for months. The cost is being transferred. Not to the people who control the system. To everyone else.
And in Maiduguri yesterday, they buried a Brigadier General killed by Boko Haram on April 9. The President was not there.
Six stories. Let's dig deeper
1. THE SHUTDOWN NOTICE
Nigerian airlines have until Monday. The Airline Operators of Nigeria sent a formal shutdown notice this week after Jet A1 jumped from ₦900 to ₦3,300 per litre in six weeks. One airline has already grounded all operations since March 13.
Global crude rose 30% in the same period. Jet A1 rose 300%. The AON called the difference "artificial." The shutdown notice went to the President, the Vice President, the Minister of Aviation, and the DSS.
If nothing changes by Monday, Air Peace, ValueJet, Aero Contractors, and United Nigeria Air stop flying. The corridor between Nigeria's cities closes for everyone who depends on it without ever owning a ticket.
2. APPROVED DOESN'T MEAN FIXED
Last week Tinubu announced ₦3.3trn to settle Nigeria's power sector debts. Actual electricity generation has fallen since.
As of April 3, generation allocated to distribution companies stood at 3,345 megawatts. Last year it was around 5,000. The Association of Power Generation Companies says the real total debt is closer to ₦12trn, not ₦3.3trn. Their CEO says the debt figure the government used was calculated by NBET. NBET is the body that owes the money.
Nigeria has announced this fix before. The lights are still off.
3. THE ABSENT PRESIDENT
Brigadier General Oseni Braimah was buried at the Maimalari Cantonment Cemetery in Maiduguri yesterday. He was the Brigade Commander of the 29 Task Force Brigade, killed on April 9 when Boko Haram and ISWAP attacked military positions in Benisheikh.
The Minister of Defence was there. The Chief of Defence Staff was there. The Chief of Army Staff was there. The Borno Governor was there.
The President and Vice President were not.
4. THE NARROWING CORRIDOR
Reform UK announced this week it would block visa applications from Nigeria if it takes power. Nigeria signed a deportation deal with the UK three weeks ago that makes it easier to remove Nigerians without legal status. Both things happened in the same month.
Reform UK is not in government. But it is the largest party in parts of the UK by polling, and Labour is already moving right on migration to hold it off.
The corridor between Nigeria and Britain is narrowing from both ends at once. The person being squeezed didn't choose either government's pressures.
5. THE QUESTION THIS WEEK
If deregulation was supposed to fix Nigerian energy, what exactly has it fixed?
Jet A1 up 300% in six weeks while global crude rose 30%. Electricity generation down from 5,000MW to 3,345MW after a ₦3.3trn announcement. Diesel prices still out of reach. Petrol risen multiple times since subsidy removal.
The infrastructure that would make a real market possible doesn't exist. Deregulation in a market with no competition doesn't produce efficiency. It produces extraction.
6. TWO NAMES, FORTY YEARS LATE
Fela Kuti and Sade Adu became the first Africans inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame this week. Both of Nigerian origin. Both part of the Class of 2026.
Fela goes in under Early Influence, posthumously. The Nigerian military burned his home in 1977, threw his mother from an upstairs window, and imprisoned him multiple times. He died in 1997. The ceremony is in November in Los Angeles.
Nigeria produces extraordinary things. What it does with them while they're alive is a separate question.
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