Your Transport Fare Is Supposed to Drop in October. Here’s What’s Actually Changing

What’s going on?

On Thursday, August 27, 2026, President Bola Tinubu announced that transport fares nationwide will be reduced starting October 1, 2026, as a result of the adoption of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) and electric vehicles.

He made the announcement after a meeting with the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), with the changes expected to take effect from October 1.

The plan will require the Federal and state governments to work together to pass the savings from CNG and electric vehicles on to commuters. It’s a big promise. The question is whether it’s a new plan or an old one with just a new deadline.

• President Bola Ahmed Tinubu

What did he say?

Tinubu’s math is simple: CNG vehicles can spend 60 to 80 per cent less on fuel than petrol-powered ones, so operators’ running costs should fall and so should transport fares.

He has ordered 500 more CNG refuelling stations, on top of the 500 already approved this year, bringing the national target to 1,000 stations. The Federal Government is currently financing over 100 gas projects nationwide, including 15 CNG “mother stations” and 86 “daughter stations,” and more than 120,000 vehicles have already been converted to CNG. This sounds like a brilliant plan, but this isn’t Nigeria’s first CNG rodeo.

Remember me?

The Presidential CNG Initiative initially started in 2023 to reduce the hardship Nigerians were facing from the fuel subsidy removal. Petrol prices were around ₦950 per litre at the time. Back then, the promise was 150,000 vehicle conversions within a year.

Three years later, the country has only just surpassed 120,000 total conversions. The government’s own long-term plan targets 2,322 CNG stations, 3,000 conversion centres, and one million converted vehicles by 2027, meaning Tinubu’s “new” 1,000-station push is still less than half the original target, arriving with 15 months left on the original timetable.

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Have you seen the prices?

If you’re not already raising an eyebrow, you should. This fare-cutting announcement is happening after years of CNG rollout.

Data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) show that the average intra-city bus fare hit ₦1,431.25 in May 2026, representing a 38.63 per cent increase from ₦1,032.46 in May 2025. Transport fares were rising like crazy during the same period that the CNG initiative was supposed to bring costs down.

Experts have noted that despite CNG’s cost advantages, the policy hasn’t led to lower fares for commuters, and analysts warn that inadequate infrastructure, high conversion costs, and the usual government delays could continue to slow adoption. Nigeria’s CNG push was also never matched by aggressive investment in refuelling stations, leaving stations severely inadequate to meet the demand they created, which is why long queues at CNG stations have become their own story.

What does this mean for you?

If you commute in Lagos, Abuja, Kano, or any major city, this is your money and your time. Your transport fare has already climbed by nearly 40% over the past year under a program that was supposed to bring it down.

If October 1 comes and goes without a visible drop in your bus prices, you’re not imagining things. The pattern of the last three years says the infrastructure to back this promise still isn’t fully built, and if fares do drop, it’d be worth asking why it took three years and a new press release to get there.

So..what can you do?

Check whether your state government has published its own CNG fare-reduction plan. Tinubu clearly put intra-state transport in governors’ hands, so your state’s silence or action matters now more than ever.

Use the MyCNG app to see if refuelling stations are actually near your route. If it’s still the same old story after October 1, ask your state transport ministry directly what happened to the plan and keep the receipts. Take note of your fares now, so nobody can rewrite what “before” looked like.

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