The Nigerian economy has been experiencing depression since the beginning of this
decade. Its over-independence on the oil sector has made it to feel the impact of the
general world economic recession more than most developing countries. To worsen the
situation, the world oil market is also bedeviled with price instability and low demand. In
an attempt to bail the economy out of the wood, structural adjustment programmes were
introduced One of these is the fuel price increase on the locally consumed petroleum
products.
This study investigated the impacts of the policy on the Nigerian economy. The method
employed was to seek the opinions of four major categories of petroleum product
consumers through questionnaire. The questions therein touched on different anticipated
effects, on which respondents were to declare agreements or otherwise and the extent.
The result showed that the policy was responsible for increase in transport fares,
inflationary, affecting the industries adversely but has not created unemployment. The
policy has affected Nigerians irrespective to their income level.
Further studies could still be done on this topic in area of considering the impacts on other
economic sectors unfocussed on in this study. Among these are foreign trade and foreign
earnings of the country. Also the study could be carried out in some other states of the
Federation
