Comments by federal government that local oil producers and marketers are not fair to consumers by not adjusting prices to market forces realities has drawn threat of a shutdown from the marketers.
“The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission has expressed concern over findings from an ongoing surveillance of the downstream petroleum market suggesting undue exploitation of consumers.
“A review of the gantry prices of local refiners, marketers, depot operators and retail outlet operators revealed token reductions in prices that are not commensurate with the steep fall in crude prices in the global market,” FCCPC had said in a statement on Sunday against the backdrop of the sharp drop in global crude oil prices, which fell to about$73 per barrel last Wednesday.
Despite the price drop, fuel is still sold between N1,350 and N1,500 per litre in several parts of the country, while diesel prices climbed to about N2,000 per litre.
The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Oil), Heineken Lokpobiri, on Monday spoke in similar vein at the opening ceremony of the 2026 General Counsel and Legal Advisers Forum where Lokpobiri also expressed government’s disapprobation at the failure of those in the oil business to bring fuel and diesel prices down.
While acknowledging that the era of government-fixed petrol prices was over, he said, deregulation did not mean regulators should abdicate their responsibility to protect consumers, adding that government would not tolerate profiteering and other practices that exploit fuel consumers.
The comments have however, drawn threat from marketers.
The National Publicity Secretary of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, Chinedu Ukadike, in an interview with Punchng said that any attempt by the government to enforce price control, would be resisted.
“Marketers(we) would shut down if they try somehow to enforce price control. We are going to shut down our stations nationwide. You can’t be regulating a deregulated market. You can’t tell me how much to sell my product without trying to know how much I bought it,” Ukadike told the publication.
