Tinubu inaugurated and says subsidy is gone

On May 29, 2023, Bola Ahmed Tinubu was inaugurated as Nigeria's fifth president under the Fourth Republic at Eagle Square in Abuja. In his inaugural address, the former Lagos State governor and All Progressives Congress candidate immediately announced the end of Nigeria's decades-old fuel subsidy program, declaring that the subsidy was gone. The announcement sent immediate shockwaves through the economy and led to rapid increases in petrol prices across the country within hours of his speech.

The fuel subsidy had been a contentious issue in Nigerian politics for decades, with successive governments struggling to balance popular demands for cheap fuel against mounting fiscal pressures. Previous attempts to remove subsidies by leaders including Olusegun Obasanjo, Umaru Yar'Adua, and Goodluck Jonathan had faced massive public protests and were either reversed or scaled back. Tinubu's predecessor, Muhammadu Buhari, had also promised subsidy removal but repeatedly delayed implementation due to political and economic considerations.