The Strait of Hormuz is 4,000km away. Your commute got more expensive this morning anyway

Transporters announced new fares yesterday, hours after pump prices crossed ₦1,000 per litre at stations nationwide. The mechanism is simple and brutal: petrol goes up, transport costs go up, everything moved by road goes up. Food, water, goods, people.

Nigeria earns more when crude prices are high. But it spends more too, because it imports refined products. The revenue calculation only works if production is high and refineries are running. Nigeria's crude output has been below target for years. The domestic refineries have been below capacity for decades. So the higher crude prices go, the more you pay at the pump — and the government's revenue gain doesn't reach you.

Then there's the generator. Diesel is now ₦1,620 per litre. In a country where the grid still can't replace it, businesses, hospitals, schools, and households running diesel generators are absorbing this shock simultaneously with the transport shock. It hits twice. Sometimes three times, because the supply chain for goods those businesses sell also runs on diesel.

You absorb the cost. The treasury absorbs the windfall. That gap is the system. It doesn't change with the price of oil.