The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Oil),
Heineken Lokpobiri, has said President Bola Tinubu’s administration does not
have the power to reduce the price of petrol because the downstream oil sector
has been fully deregulated.
Speaking on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Tuesday,
Lokpobiri said petrol pricing is determined by global market forces, not by the
federal government.
According to him, “The Bola Tinubu government doesn’t have
any power to reduce or increase the price of petrol. It is completely
deregulated in line with global best standards.”
He explained that crude oil and refined petroleum products
are traded globally, meaning Nigeria cannot fix prices without returning to the
fuel subsidy regime.
“Crude oil and refined products are a global business.
Nigeria doesn’t exist in isolation. You cannot arbitrarily reduce prices unless
you want to roll back to subsidy,” he said.
Lokpobiri made the comments while responding to former Vice
President Atiku Abubakar’s call for a production subsidy that would make
locally refined petrol cheaper for Nigerians.
He dismissed the proposal.
According to him, Atiku had no legal basis, no fiscal basis,
no financial basis.
The minister also rejected the argument that petrol should
be significantly cheaper because it is refined locally at the Dangote Refinery.
He said locally produced crude is still sold to refineries
at international market prices, making global pricing unavoidable.
“They sell crude to the refinery at the same global price,”
he said.
However, he argued that Nigerians are still benefiting from
local refining through improved fuel availability and lower prices compared to
some other countries.
“We already benefit. That’s why our price is lower than that
of the U.S.,” Lokpobiri said.
He noted that even the United States, one of the world’s
largest oil producers with extensive refining capacity, sells fuel at prices
higher than Nigeria’s average pump price.
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