Nigerian governments love a good subsidy.
We have subsidies and price caps for electricity, petrol, natural gas, and university education. The government’s intentions (at least in the beginning) are almost always pure—they just want to protect citizens from high prices.
Key takeaways:
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The Nigerian government is addicted to price controls—it sets prices for petrol, natural gas, electricity, and even university education.
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However, the price cap on domestic natural gas is worse than you might have imagined.
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The impact of Nigeria’s domestic natural gas cap ranges from an underdeveloped gas sector to gas flaring, pollution and poverty.
Unfortunately, in practice, price caps always remind me of the iconic quote by Harvey Dent from The Dark Knight: “You either die a hero or live long enough to become a villain”.
You see, the problem with price caps is that governments just don’t know when to stop.
Take Nigeria’s petrol price cap, for
