For starters, it is important to note that like Nigeria, Libya has one of Africa’s largest oil reserves. So what the National Oil Corporation (NOC), Libya’s state oil company, does is to import fuel at market prices and sell it to citizens at a heavily discounted rate. Fuel smuggling in Libya is worth at least $5bn and incidentally, Russia, the same country where oil products are imported into the North African country is said to be the beneficiary of black market fuel. He was quoted as far back as January 2024 by his media office as saying that the fuel subsidy system was “a drain on the state budget”. This is where Libya has found itself today but a section of the media in Nigeria prefers to paint a rosy picture to unsuspecting Nigerians.

Source: Libya Today October 13, 2024 18:05 UTC