Misinformation on new petrol pricing sprang from between the Dangote Group and the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited between Thursday and Saturday.
According to a report by Foundation for Investigative Journalism [FIJ], the seed of the misinformation on new petrol pricing came from Dangote.
The report said that Dangote had since deleted a post on microblogging platform X in which it claimed that the NNPC had “the sole authority” to determine the price of petrol in Nigeria.
here is the X link to the post
Since the Dangote Refinery and Petrochemical Company, a subsidiary of Aliko Dangote’s Dangote Group, announced its readiness to begin selling its petrol product into the domestic market, there has been much public debate on the appropriate cost of the refinery’s petrol per litre.
On Thursday, the company posted a media flyer featuring Aliko Dangote with a quote to the effect that only the NNPC could decide how much a litre of petrol sold for in Nigeria.
“NNPC has the sole authority to determine price of petrol,” Dangote Group said in the post.
This claim made the news. However, it has now been deleted, but not without forcing a rebuttal from the NNPC, which is the petroleum industry regulator.
“WE DON’T DETERMINE PRICES”
Hours after Dangote Group’s claim, NNPC told Nigerians that it had no such power to determine a price. It claimed that it was a decision strictly in the invisible hands of the market forces envisaged by the law.
Rightly so, Section 205 of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA), the NNPC’s establishment law, states that prices of petrol would be determined by the unrestricted market conditions. It says, “Subject to the provision of this section, wholesale and retail prices of petroleum products shall be based on unrestricted free market pricing conditions.”
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Olufemi Soneye, the NNPC chief corporate communications officer, also said in a statement on Thursday that the market had been deregulated.
“The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd.) has stated that foreign exchange (forex) illiquidity has been a significant factor influencing the fluctuation in prices of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), which are governed by unrestricted free market forces, as provided for in the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA), 2021.
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“The market has been deregulated, meaning that petrol prices are now determined by market forces rather than by the government or NNPC Ltd. Additionally, the exchange rate plays a significant role in influencing these prices.”
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Prices of petrol hover around N900 to N1,200 per litre in major parts of Nigeria.
As the government claims it has withdrawn subsidy payments completely, some have argued that the prices would remain unstable and petrol could sell higher than they currently do. [FIJ report with some edits]
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