Human rights lawyer, Femi Falana, has stated that it is illegal for the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) to set petrol prices.
In a statement released on Thursday, Falana argued that the company’s actions violate the provisions of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA).
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Falana said though the NNPCL claimed the market has been deregulated and market forces now determine petrol prices, “the NNPCL fixed the price of fuel refined by the Dangote Refinery and Petrochemical Company Limited last month. The so-called market forces were not allowed to fix the price”.
“Yesterday (Wednesday), the Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited announced new pump prices of fuel refined by the Dangote Refinery and Petrochemical Company. Once again, the so-called market forces were not allowed to fix the new prices of fuel.
“The decisions of the NNPCL to fix the prices of imported fuel and locally refined fuel are illegal, nullity and void as they contravene the provisions of section 205 of the Petroleum Industry Act which stipulates that the prices of petroleum products shall be determined by market forces,” he said.
Return Petrol Price To What It Was In June 2023 – TUC Tells FG
The Trade Union Congress (TUC) has called for a rollback of petrol prices to the levels they were at in June 2023.
“We want the price of the product to go below what it was before; not just reverse to what it was before but to go below,” said TUC President, Festus Osifo, at a press briefing in Abuja on Thursday.
He asked the government to specially intervene in the sector by giving foreign exchange to Dangote Refinery at $1/N1,000 and not at the current $over 1/N1,600 exchange rate to crash petrol prices
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“The solution we are proposing if implemented will take us to the price we had as of June last year,” Osifo stated, stressing that “there is no government in the world that doesn’t intervene in its critical sector” and that the Federal Government “shouldn’t leave it (the oil sector) to the vagaries and gyration of our naira”.
Since May 2023, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) has raised petrol pump prices from ₦184 per litre in Lagos to ₦998. By June 2023, the price per litre in Lagos had risen to around ₦450.
On Thursday, the TUC leader emphasized the importance of petrol being available, affordable, and accessible to all Nigerians, noting that the commodity is essential for every household, even for those without vehicles.
The trade union placed its demands along the lines of affordability, availability and accessibility, saying, “We want the Federal Government to, through Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), give all marketers licenses to lift petrol from the Dangote Refinery.”
Osifo urged the NNPCL to explore sourcing refined petrol from alternative suppliers if the Dangote Refinery is unable to meet the current daily demands of Nigerians.
“If it is not available, it is a problem. If, for example, the production from Dangote Refinery is less than 15 million litres per day, it is not sufficient.
“So, while efforts are being made to ramp up production from Dangote Refinery, what we are demanding is that we should look for every other means as we are ramping up production, we should source for that difference and bring it in for a while until Dangote can get to that level where the production is sufficient to get to all nooks and crannies of Nigeria. For us, that is key because it will address the issue of availability,” the TUC boss stated.
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