2023-09-23 22:40:59
At least thirty-four people were killed on Saturday September 23 in a fire at a smuggled fuel depot in southern Benin, near the border with Nigeria, announced the Minister of the Interior, Alassane Seidou. “This morning a serious fire occurred in the town of Seme Podji. We have unfortunately recorded thirty-four deaths, including two babies”he told journalists.
The bodies were found charred at the scene, he said. Twenty people were also injured, some seriously, and admitted to hospital, he said. The exact circumstances of the fire were unclear at this stage. However, the Minister of the Interior understands that “the cause of the fire is smuggled fuel”.
For decades, fuel kept at artificially low prices thanks to government subsidies in Nigeria was transported illegally by road to neighboring countries, particularly Benin, where it was resold on the black market by a multitude of informal sellers. When Nigeria’s new president, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, came to power in May, he ended fuel subsidies, leading to an immediate spike in prices.
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The president saw these subsidies as an unsustainable financial pit, and denounced in particular the immense smuggling of subsidized gasoline to neighboring countries. The end of subsidized fuel in Nigeria immediately had an impact on the prices of black market fuel sold in Benin and other neighboring countries.
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