The Presidency has clarified why government agencies cannot intervene in the ongoing price dispute between the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) and Dangote Refinery, stating that both entities are private companies.
During a press conference at the Presidential Villa on Wednesday, O’tega Ogra, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Digital and New Media, explained that the petroleum sector has been fully deregulated by the government, allowing operators like NNPCL and Dangote to function as private businesses.
He noted that while the government has a stake in NNPCL, the Petroleum Industry Act mandates that the NNPC operate independently, which is why government intervention in the price controversy is not feasible.
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Ogra emphasized that consumers will ultimately benefit from the situation, remarking, “It’s the consumer who benefits if a price war starts.”
He said, “As far as this government is concerned, the PMS regime has been deregulated, Dangote is a private company. We should not forget NNPCL is a limited liability company. Whatever controversy both of them are having has nothing to do with the government.
“If you go by the terms of Petroleum Industry Act, NNPC is on its own, even though it’s owned by the federal government, the state governments and local councils, but it’s operating as a limited liability company. You can see what the private marketers said that ‘if they find the NNPCL or Dangote’s prices are too much for them, they will resort to importing fuel because it’s a deregulated market,’ At the end of the day, it’s the consumer who benefits if a price war starts.
“If NNPCL fuel is too much (expensive), the private marketers can go to the market and bring in their own fuel and sell at the price that they think is very reasonable and profitable for them. So my answer is that, as far as government is concerned, government is not dabbling ino this controversy. Dangote is a private company, it’s working on its own. NNPCL is a limited liability company and it has the right to fix the price of its own fuel.
“As a counterpart to that, government has a programme, which somebody mentioned earlier about CNG. The government wants to make sure that Nigerians have a choice. If you don’t want to use PMS, you can use CNG and you can see what’s going on in some of our cities; Lagos, Ibadan, Benin and some other places where transporters are already embracing CNG,” he said.
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