“Well, we know now that we cannot call it an increase but rather we can call the removal of subsidy deregulation. Now, deregulation has started taking place fully,” IPMAN president Abubakar Garima said on Thursday when he was featured as a guest on Channels Television’s breakfast show Sunrise Daily. 

Retail outlets of the Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) had adjusted the cost of the product in Lagos and Abuja.

A litre of the product now sells for ₦998 from the initial price of ₦855 in Lagos State while it goes for ₦1,030 from the ₦897 it was earlier sold.

The move came months after President Bola Tinubu declared an end to the subsidy regime, declaring it “gone” during his inauguration in May 2023.

Before his pronouncement, a litre of the commodity was sold for about ₦200 across the country. But since then, it has been on a continuous rise.

That policy and the floating of the naira have sharply led to a rise in the cost of commodities in Nigeria, pushing essential items beyond the reach of millions of people across Africa’s most populous nation.

Despite the high cost of the product, availability has been an issue with queues snaking into major roads and streets a regular feature across filling stations in Nigeria.

However, the IPMAN president says with the sector now fully deregulated, availability will be a thing of the past.

“The change that Nigerians are going to expect now: one, we are expecting availability since there is no subsidy,” Garima said.

“The NNPC is not the sole importer. Other marketers too will participate. It is the same thing in buying the product. Other marketers will buy products directly from Dangote [Refinery]. It is not only NNPC.”

With Wednesday’s adjustment, private suppliers are expected to sell fuel at higher prices. This increment which came about a month after a similar one has triggered outrage in the country.

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has called for a reversal of the pump price hike which is said it was dismayed about.

It argued that the new cost of the commodity will further “deepen poverty as production capacities dip”.

“In light of this, we urge the government to immediately reverse this rate hike as previous increases did not produce any good results. People only got poorer,” it said.

Tinubu has repeatedly called for patience for his reforms to yield results despite protests in August.

Channels Television