The Belgore Committee on Subsidy Reinvestment was constituted by President Goodluck Jonathan on 2 January 2012—immediately following the government's announcement on 1 January that the federal fuel subsidy would be removed, raising the petrol pump price from ₦65 to ₦141 per litre. The committee was chaired by retired Chief Justice of Nigeria Justice Alfa Belgore and comprised eleven members representing government, organised labour, civil society, and the private sector. Its mandate was threefold: to consult with labour unions and stakeholder groups who were threatening a nationwide general strike; to assess the legitimacy and scope of the subsidy regime; and to advise on a credible framework for reinvesting subsidy savings into pro-poor public goods.
The committee convened emergency consultations with the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC) in the first week of January 2012, against the backdrop of mass protests—the largest since the 1980s—erupting across Lagos, Abuja, Kano, and Port Harcourt. It submitted a preliminary report within days, recommending a partial restoration of the subsidy (with pump price pegged at ₦97 per litre as a compromise) and the creation of a dedicated reinvestment programme to deploy savings transparently. Its findings confirmed that the subsidy regime had been characterised by massive fraud: official daily consumption figures cited by oil marketers were inflated far beyond the country's actual absorptive capacity, with the House of Representatives' parallel investigation estimating fraudulent subsidy claims at up to ₦2.587 trillion between 2009 and 2011.
Based partly on the Belgore Committee's framework, Jonathan launched the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P) in February 2012, channelling subsidy savings into infrastructure (roads, bridges, urban transit), maternal health, youth employment, and conditional cash transfers. A separate SURE-P management committee chaired by Dr. Christopher Kolade oversaw implementation. The government published the Belgore Committee's consultation report but not all its internal working papers. SURE-P was eventually suspended and wound down by the Buhari administration in 2015 following another full removal of the fuel subsidy, with auditors subsequently noting that SURE-P disbursements themselves had attracted governance concerns.