WHAT exactly is going on in Nigeria’s petroleum sector? And what should be the pump price of fuel? Nigerians, sadly, have no answers to these ordinary questions. Almost on a daily basis, the Federal Government and the authorities of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) make it clear to the people that they are determined to make the country’s oil wealth a curse. When, early this month, the president of the Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, announced that the Dangote Petroleum Refinery was set to roll out petroleum, Nigerians who thought that the move would lead to a significant reduction in the pump price of the product erupted in wild jubilations. But almost immediately, and as if to foist a fait accompli on Nigerians, the NNPCL announced an upward review of the pump price from the previous N617 to N897 per litre. The new price regime immediately took effect even as the oil marketers whimsically jacked up the price of the product, dampening the spirits of ordinary Nigerians already plagued by the naira floatation and subsidy removal policies of the Federal Government. At the moment, the product sells for between N950 and N1,200 in most filling stations, making the shell-shocked populace to wonder precisely what went wrong between May 29, 2023, the day of the inauguration of the Bola Tinubu administration when the product last sold for N198, and the moment.

While the government adopted the familiar tactic of denying responsibility for the inexplicable price hike, its relationship with the NNPC, the Dangote Refinery and the oil marketers remains unclear, with Nigerians consistently treated to a cacophony of contradictory statements. First, there were reports that the NNPCL would be the sole distributor of the product, with the first batch of the consignment put at 16.8 million liters. But the corporation quickly dismissed the story as mere conjecture. Then, it emerged that the corporation had authorised major petroleum marketers to commence lifting petrol from the Dangote Petroleum Refinery under the existing agreement between it and the refinery. While media reports suggested that some major marketers had already lifted the product for distribution to their outlets in Lagos and other parts of the country, the terms of the arrangement remained shrouded in mystery.

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Last week, the National President of Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, IPMAN, Alhaji Abubakar Garima, confirmed that only NNPCL had access to Dangote’s fuel. He said: “Independent marketers are waiting for NNPCL to give the new price of the petroleum products in order to lift from them. We load at the old rate of N875 per litre as most of our members have outstanding stock with NNPCL. We were told that they would be cleared this week.” Meanwhile, with the NNPCL as the sole off-taker of petrol from Dangote Refinery, marketers declared that they would resort to importation in order to continue in business, urging the Federal Government to completely open up the sector to all players. On the other hand, the authorities of the refinery indicated that they were being forced to import crude in the face of the NNPCL’s inability to guarantee its daily need of 650,000 barrels of crude. Alhaji Dangote himself had earlier told Nigerians that the pump price of fuel would be determined by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) led by President Bola Tinubu.

Meanwhile, amid the confusion, the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) declared categorically, and obviously commonsensically, that it made no sense for the NNPCL to sell petrol lifted from the Dangote Refinery at a higher price than imported ones. This was disclosed by the IPMAN National Welfare Officer, John Kekeocha, during a television programme. Kekeocha wondered: “What is the celebration we have been having all these while all about then?” Now, as the NNPCL began loading the first batch of petrol from the Dangote Refinery, its declaration that it got petrol at N898 per litre from the private refinery was hotly contested by the latter, which insisted that it sold the product to the corporation at a significantly less price. But then, even the clarification issued by Dangote Refinery was decidedly cloudy, completely shirking the mention of specific figures. Worse still, the NNPCL actually admitted, following the refinery’s retort, that there was a problem with its initial computation!

In case we missed any part of Nigeria’s demonstrably insane PMS story so far, it is precisely because telling a story dark and demonic in every purport is not an easy task. Beyond an awareness of the fact that Nigeria is blessed with oil wealth, there is hardly any Nigerian who can claim to know precisely what is/has been going on in the petroleum sector. NNPCL says something at breakfast – for instance, that it is not owing its trading partners humongous sum – then says something completely different at lunch time, admitting that it is embroiled in huge debts. It plays ping pong with the emotions of Nigerians, saying that Nigeria’s four refineries will work at one date, then shifting the deadline to another date, and so on ad infinitum. Nigerians are like a rookie placed in the middle of a metaphorical two-a-side football game with the superstars Lionel Messi and Ronaldinho Gaucho on one side and Cristiano Ronaldo and Pele on the other, tasked with retrieving the ball, and completely emasculated while attempting the impossible task till the referee’s final whistle. The government and the NNPCL have been dribbling Nigerians with Maradonic machination, clinking glasses as they laugh at the sad fate of the people over whom they preside.

What should be the pump price of fuel? Nigerians do not know. Yet there should be an open and transparent process in the determination of fuel prices, especially in view of revelations that petrol sells for as low as N52 per litre in Libya, while Egypt, Algeria and Angola, another oil-producing country, also sell at far cheaper prices than Nigeria. In certain oil-blessed countries like the UAE, you can actually order petrol from the comfort of your home. Not in Nigeria, where even a visit to filling stations guarantees nothing. In Saudi Arabia, details are provided for every barrel of crude oil lifted. In Nigeria, only the government and the NNPCL can tell – that is, when they actually choose to be honest in dealing with each other. For Nigerians, they are completely on their own, lamenting their accident of birth. It is profoundly sad that there is no clarity on petrol price even after Dangote’s refinery started producing petrol, but that is perhaps only natural in an abundantly blessed but criminally managed country. A large quantity of oil not yet produced has been traded off through the oil-for-cash deals initiated by the Muhammadu Buhari government, which make it impossible to service the local refineries, should the authorities actually decide to service them, but what happened to the bags of dollar Nigeria supposedly got in return? The confusion about petrol is a mirror of Nigeria’s governmental state. (Nigerian Tribune Editorial)