At 6:47 AM on Tuesday, August 12, 2025, in the heart of Ikeja, Lagos, Mrs. Adebayo joined a fuel queue that already snaked through three city blocks. By the time she reached the pump at 8:15 AM, she paid ₦800 per litre—an astonishing leap from the ₦617 she’d paid just a week prior. For millions of Nigerians, this scene is all too familiar: the scarcity of fuel, whether real or orchestrated, is a recurring drama that shapes daily life and defines the rhythms of commerce and survival.
This week, the stakes of Nigeria’s fuel crisis—and the psychology that underpins it—were thrown into sharp relief by a trio of seismic developments. On Friday, August 15, Africa’s largest oil refinery, the Dangote Refinery, began direct and free shipping of fuel to retailers across Nigeria, a move that promises to upend the country’s oil sector and challenge the entrenched interests that have long dominated fuel distribution. Just days earlier, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) announced a sweeping crackdown on corruption in the nation’s ailing refineries, having recovered over ₦5 billion and $10 million from indicted contractors and officials. The anti-graft agency is now pursuing an additional ₦10 billion and $13 million, all part of a massive fraud scandal that has left the Port Harcourt, Warri, and Kaduna refineries largely comatose despite decades of multi-billion-dollar investments.
The convergence of these events has exposed not only the deep rot in Nigeria’s oil industry but also the remarkable resilience and sophistication of its consumers. As PNAS and other research have shown, scarcity—real or perceived—can hijack rational decision-making. But in Nigeria, this effect is filtered through decades of experience, creating what some have dubbed “scarcity intelligence.”
“Last two pieces!” shouts a fabric seller at Balogun Market. “Original stock don finish, na only duplicate remain,” a phone vendor at Computer Village warns. These are not just sales pitches; they are psychological triggers honed for an audience that has learned to distinguish between genuine shortage and manufactured urgency. According to Robert Cialdini’s research on influence psychology, scarcity can polarize preferences, making products either irresistible or irrelevant. Yet, as the PNAS study notes, Nigerian consumers have developed sophisticated filters. They ask themselves: “Is this scarcity real, or is someone trying to rush me into a decision?”
This skepticism is not unfounded. The EFCC’s ongoing investigation, led by Chairman Ola Olukoyede, has revealed that despite allocations of $1.55 billion to the Port Harcourt refinery, $740 million to Kaduna, and $656 million to Warri, these plants remain non-operational. The agency has arrested and interrogated several former and current officials of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), with prosecutions said to be imminent. “The scale of fraud is staggering,” an EFCC source told local press. “Over-invoicing, inflated contracts, and questionable payments are at the heart of why these refineries have failed.”
For years, Nigeria’s refineries have been a drain on public finances, with successive administrations pouring billions into turnaround maintenance projects that have yielded little or no results. The EFCC’s probe marks one of the most aggressive efforts yet to unravel the financial rot behind the nation’s fuel crisis, according to Gistmania.
Meanwhile, the launch of direct shipping by the Dangote Refinery is poised to disrupt the sector in ways that could finally ease the chronic shortages—and the psychological toll they exact. The refinery, owned by billionaire Aliko Dangote and boasting a 650,000-barrel-per-day capacity, was launched in 2023. Since then, it has helped stabilize prices after a government decision to scrap fuel subsidies caused petrol costs to spike more than fivefold before gradually dropping. The Dangote group is now rolling out 4,000 compressed natural gas-powered trucks to distribute petroleum nationwide, aiming to cut out intermediaries, lower logistics costs, and improve fuel availability, as reported by AFP.
Anthony Chiejina, Dangote’s group spokesman, stated that the initiative will “significantly lower distribution costs and improve fuel availability,” potentially alleviating some of the inflationary pressures that have plagued Nigerian households. However, not everyone is celebrating. The Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria has voiced concerns about the creation of a monopoly. “In theory, this plan should reduce the cost of petrol distribution,” said Clement Isong, head of the Major Energy Marketers Association of Nigeria, “but the drop in the pump prices may not be significant.”
For many, the root of the problem lies deeper. Nigeria, Africa’s largest oil producer, pumps an average of 1.5 million barrels per day—still short of its 2 million bpd target, according to OPEC. High production costs (about $30 per barrel compared to $10 in Saudi Arabia), rampant oil theft, and persistent corruption have kept the industry in crisis. Environmental pollution from pipeline spills has devastated communities in the Niger Delta, while frequent accidents involving fuel trucks underscore the economic precarity faced by millions.
Despite four government-operated refineries with a combined capacity of 445,000 bpd, poor maintenance and graft have hampered their operation. Several NNPCL executives are currently under investigation, and in January 2025, US authorities returned nearly $53 million in illicit money recovered from a former petroleum minister. Prior to the Dangote refinery’s launch, the industry had been “largely structured around the interests of well-monied and politically connected middlemen,” SBM Intelligence analyst Ikemesit Effiong told AFP. Domestic refining was simply not in their interests.
President Bola Tinubu’s move to scrap fuel subsidies was a watershed moment. Though it initially sent petrol prices soaring, it also forced a reckoning with the true costs of Nigeria’s fuel dependency and opened the door for private sector solutions. As Oando group chief executive Wale Tinubu wrote, declining petrol imports “into the country due to rising local refining capacity from the Dangote Refinery [is] a positive development that enhances Nigeria’s energy security and self-sufficiency.”
But for the average Nigerian, the real test is at the pump—and in the marketplace, where the “scarcity effect” plays out daily. During the 2023 naira redesign, for instance, as cash became scarce, people didn’t just pay premiums for physical notes; they shifted en masse to mobile money, exposing hidden preferences and accelerating digital adoption. When dollars become hard to find, consumers don’t just switch from Mercedes to Toyota—they upgrade the Toyota with premium features, swap imported wine for local but serve it in imported glasses. This is “substitution behavior,” but with a distinctly Nigerian flair.
Ultimately, the psychology of scarcity in Nigeria is not just about fear or anxiety. It’s about adaptation, verification, and community. In the fuel queue, business cards are exchanged and deals are struck. Limited-edition products become conversation starters. Scarcity brings people together, not just in competition but in shared experience and collective resilience.
As the nation confronts the twin challenges of corruption and reform, it’s this “scarcity intelligence”—refined by necessity and sharpened by experience—that may prove to be Nigeria’s greatest, if often overlooked, competitive advantage.
