Nigeria’s President Buhari is doing away with petrol subsidies

TIME IN NIGERIAGDP sometimes seems to follow its own rhythm. When the government introduced petrol subsidies they were meant to last just six months. Some four decades later, they endure.Africa’s biggest oil producer sometimes has the continent’s longest queues outside filling stations. Not one of its four refineries has produced a drop of petrol in more than a year. The reason is that the government forces oil companies to sell petrol at the pump for less than it is worth on international markets (with the state, belatedly, paying the difference). The subsidies have been a huge drain on the treasury: when oil prices were higher in 2011 they equalled almost 5% of . The subsidies are often stolen. And when they are not, they encourage overconsumption of a planet-cooking fossil fuel.