Just days after International Women’s Day 2026, the hard-won gains of Nigerian women face a new assault. While we celebrate the historic elevation of DIG Margaret Ochala—a crack in the glass ceiling—the brutal truth is that women still battle systemic discrimination and patriarchal laws daily. Now, a global fuel crisis threatens to push them back decades.
With petrol prices soaring past N1,300 per litre due to Middle East tensions , this is not merely an economic inconvenience. It is a national security threat with a woman’s face.
Why Women Bear the Heaviest Burden
Women dominate Nigeria’s informal trade and subsistence farming. When transport costs skyrocket, their profits evaporate. Farmers cannot move produce. Market women sell at a loss. Malnutrition rises. This is not a setback; it is a shutdown.
Desperation also fuels violence. As livelihoods collapse, gender-based violence escalates. In a society where patriarchal laws already limit women’s access to justice, this spike in violence goes largely unchecked.
Most critically, desperation drives arms proliferation. When young people lose hope, criminal networks gain recruits. Every price hike pushes more youth into banditry, fueling the crisis economy we claim to fight. For women, small arms are not an abstract security issue—they weaponize the very spaces women inhabit: markets, farms, and homes.
The Security Spending Paradox
For years, trillions have been spent fighting insurgency. Yet NBS data shows crime rates are not declining. Our prisons bulge. This fuel hike will only worsen the numbers, pushing more desperate youth into waiting criminal arms.
Here is the win-win opportunity: instead of viewing refinery investment as industrial policy, see it as national security spending. New refineries create jobs. Jobs reduce desperation. Desperation reduction starves criminal networks.
Throwing Good Money After Bad
We agree with the government: returning to fuel subsidy is undesirable. But the absence of subsidy cannot excuse the absence of relief at this time . The solution lies not in reviving a broken past, but in building a functional present.
For decades, we have poured billions into Turnaround Maintenance (TAM) for moribund refineries. Over $25 billion wasted in a decade . The Port Harcourt Refinery got $1.5 billion, restarted in November 2024, and shut down within six months . This is the very definition of throwing good money after bad.
Even NNPCL GCEO Bayo Ojulari recently admitted these refineries are “monuments to waste” where “we were simply wasting money”.
The Private Sector Lesson
Contrast this with Dangote Refinery, built with similar sums, now supplying 100 percent of Nigeria’s domestic fuel needs . Eleme Petrochemicals was privatised and turned around in four months. The lesson is clear: government ownership of refineries has failed.
The Way Forward
We call on the government to:
1. Abandon the failed TAM model entirely. Stop throwing good money after bad.
2. Aggressively build new refineries. If multiple new refineries were working today, pump prices would be far friendlier in future global crises. New refineries create jobs, reduce desperation, and insulate us from geopolitical shocks.
3. Fully privatise state-owned refineries to credible investors.
4. Protect domestic refiners from regulatory sabotage.
5. Deploy targeted palliatives in the interim—improving public transport and supporting women-led businesses.
Read also:
- PETROAN warns fuel prices may surge further over Iran war
- Activists flay FG, NNPC, others over incessant fuel price hikes, floods, worsening insecurity
- Nationwide protest last resort over fuel price hike — NANS
A stitch in time saves nine. New refineries are that stitch—a permanent solution that ends our vulnerability to global shocks without returning to unsustainable subsidies. This is economic policy, security policy, and gender policy rolled into one.
A nation cannot develop when its citizens are hungry, its women unsafe, and its youth desperate. The government must act swiftly—to protect the peace and security of Nigerians, already hanging in the balance.
