Between the death of Abacha in June 1998 and the end of Obasanjo's first term in 2003, the federal government attempted seven separate increases in the pump price of petrol. Six of them were rolled back, in whole or in part, by general strikes called by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) under Adams Oshiomhole.
## The pre-1999 baseline
Abacha's 20 December 1993 increase took petrol from ₦3.25 to ₦11/litre — a 238% jump — to be partially offset by the new Petroleum (Special) Trust Fund (PTF) under Buhari, which captured the differential and built roads, hospitals and water projects (some of them) until 1999. The PTF was wound down by Obasanjo in 1999. See PTF & Buhari's Apprenticeship.
## The Obasanjo cycle
- 1 June 2000: ₦20 → ₦30. NLC general strike (8 days). Partial rollback to ₦22.
- 1 January 2002: ₦22 → ₦26. NLC general strike (2 days). Rolled back to ₦22.
- 23 June 2003: ₦26 → ₦40. NLC general strike (8 days). Partially rolled back to ₦34.
- 1 October 2003: another attempted hike — withdrawn before implementation.
- 19 May 2004: ₦34 → ₦50. NLC general strike (4 days). Settled at ₦49.
- 29 August 2004: ₦49 → ₦53. NLC general strike. Settled at ₦52.
- 27 May 2007 (Obasanjo's last week in office): ₦65. Yar'Adua rolled it back to ₦70 then ₦65 within weeks.
## What the cycle meant
Each hike was justified by IMF/World Bank logic about ending the subsidy. Each rollback was negotiated through tripartite talks (federal government + NLC + NUPENG/PENGASSAN). The pattern produced what every later government inherited: petrol pricing as a permanent political pressure point, with no government able to remove the subsidy without paying a political price, and no government able to leave the subsidy in place without paying a fiscal one.
The Jonathan attempt in January 2012 (see Reversal File · Act VI — Occupy Nigeria) was the climactic enactment of this pattern. The Tinubu removal on 29 May 2023 ended the formal subsidy regime — but the F.O.O.D logic of refinery pricing has reproduced the same pump-price politics under a different name. See The King of F.O.O.D (Petrol) and Fuel Subsidy Story.