By Olarinre Salako,
When airlines in a country of Nigeria’s size begin to contemplate a nationwide shutdown due to the skyrocketing price of aviation fuel, the issue should not be treated as a routine commercial dispute. It is a warning signal of a deeper problem—a system under strain.
At such a moment, the relevant questions are about resilience: whether the country has built sufficient shock absorbers into the fuel supply chains that sustain modern life, particularly in the face of a global energy crisis.
That is how the current aviation fuel crisis should be understood: not merely as a matter of Jet A1 prices, but of the structure beneath it.
In my earlier columns—The Emerging Global Energy Crisis and the Shock Absorbers of States (Part 1) and The Emerging Global Energy Crisis and Nigeria’s Missing Shock Absorbers (Part 2), published on March 23 and March 30, respectively—I argued that the difference between resilient states and vulnerable ones lies not only in resources but also in system design. Some countries absorb shocks. Others transmit them. Nigeria, too often, transmits.
The aviation fuel crisis now unfolding is a clear demonstration of that condition.
The immediate strain
The facts are stark. Domestic airlines, through the Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON), warned that they could suspend all operations nationwide from today, Monday, April 20, 2026, following a dramatic surge in the price of aviation fuel. Jet A1, which sold for about ?900 per litre as of late February 2026, has, in some cases, risen to as high as ?3,300 per litre within weeks—representing a surge of over 300 percent in under two months, amid escalating geopolitical tensions in the Middle East.
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