Abuja resident Freda Igri was preparing to make her native afang soup for her family, but her cooking gas tank was empty. The price to refill a 12.5 kg tank with gas — about $25 U.S. — was nearly triple the normal price, and she said she couldn’t afford to spend that much on gas alone. “This scarcity of gas and the high price, it is unbearable, because going to the market right now, buying foodstuffs [is] costly, and coming back to cook again with the gas [is] costly. It’s not easy,” Igri said. The Nigerian Association of Liquefied Petroleum Gas Marketers attributes the increase in the cost of the fuel to the introduction in August of a 7.5 percent import tax, or value-added tax, on gas in a bid to expand the country’s revenue base. Up to 70 percent of the gas consumed locally […]