How does the price of fuel affect someone earning minimum wage?
If you earn the ₦70,000 minimum wage, buying just 40 litres of petrol at ₦1,400 a litre costs you ₦56,000. That is 80 per cent of your month's pay gone before you buy food, pay rent, electricity, school fees or medical bills. I have pointed out that citizens of places like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE generally earn far more while paying less per litre. That is the human reality behind the numbers.
Where this comes from
Article on X Article by @atiku on X · https://x.com/atiku/status/2094810791937446399 2026-09-01 ›
A Nigerian earning the ₦70,000 statutory minimum wage requires ₦56,000 merely to buy 40 litres of petrol at ₦1,400 per litre. That is 80 per cent of an entire month’s minimum wage. Before that worker buys food, pays rent, electricity, school fees or medical bills, four-fifths of his monthly wage can disappear into just 40 litres of petrol.
Meanwhile, citizens of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE generally earn vastly more while paying less per litre. That is the human face missing from your economic argument.
And the pain does not end at the petrol station. Take the woman selling tomatoes at Mile 12. The farmer pays for energy to cultivate. A vehicle moves the tomatoes from the farm. Another truck carries them hundreds of kilometres to Lagos. The wholesaler pays transport. The retailer pays transport again. By the time those tomatoes reach the mother preparing dinner, expensive fuel has entered the final price several times over.