*Pix above: PBAT
It was a rude shock to read the press statement by the NNPC that petrol (PMS) will sell at the pumps for between N950/litre and N1,012/litre, depending on the location.
While fuel will be sold for N950/litre in Lagos, the cheapest price, it will sell for as much as N1,012/litre in Borno State. In Delta and other South-South states, where crude oil is produced, PMS will also sell for N950/litre.
Let’s review the trend of activities leading to the current pricing of PMS, which makes it easy for citizens to conclude that the government is ”yahooing” its own people.
On May 29, 2023, President Tinubu, exercising his God-given”Emilokun”, hurriedly declared that the fuel subsidy was gone, without reviewing the books to see if the subsidy being paid was even necessary. Worse, no measures were put in place to cushion the effect of the resulting price hike on the masses. This is where the yahooing started.
Upon the declaration that the “subsidy is gone”, PMS, which was selling for around N198/litre, skyrocketed to N650/litre, representing an increase of 228%.
To the ordinary citizen, this increase implies that the subsidy the government had been paying was N452/litre (the 228% increase).
Only God knows how the price of N650/litre was arrived at and how transparent the process was, considering that for almost a decade, NNPC has not paid subsidies to anyone but itself.
The citizens, with no choice, accepted this price and decided to live with it, believing that the fraudulent activities associated with subsidy payments had been eliminated. They thought they were making a sacrifice for the nation’s progress. Little did they know they were being yahooed.
From nowhere, the NNPC published an affidavit announcing a name change from” subsidy” to”shortfall” and claimed that the government had not been paying subsidies but had instructed them to fund the gap between the shortfall and landing cost. This change of name was a calculated move, as we will see.
If I may ask, what shortfall is there when citizens are already paying an additional N452/litre? Remember, only NNPC determines what constitutes the landing cost, making citizens vulnerable to being yahooed due to the opaque nature of NNPC transactions.
After the name change from subsidy to shortfall, NNPC declared massive profits as a private limited liability company wholly owned by the Federal Government. Gbam!!!
In less than a few months after this profit declaration, the same NNPC released a statement blaming PMS scarcity (which seems artificially induced) on its inability to meet obligations amounting to over $6 billion to its suppliers.
They then requested that the dividends due to the Federal Government, meant for the federation account, be used to settle these debts. This is why they changed the name from subsidy to shortfall in the first place. My fellow citizens, did you suspect yahoo?
Without consultation with other tiers of government or appropriation by the National Assembly (which seems unnecessary now because they must stand on his mandate), the Federal Government approved NNPC’s request to confiscate these dividends. What did you expect?
A palm fruit that falls into palm oil is home with its children. This shows NNPC is just a tool in the hands of the Federal Government, bent on duping its citizens.
Now, let’s address the recent price increase of PMS from N650/litre to N950/litre. The justification was that they couldn’t continue to pay the shortfall in landing costs.
My fellow citizens, this is a fabricated lie. This was the point where they set the price for PMS from the Dangote Refinery.
They knew that releasing PMS from the Dangote Refinery would force prices below N650/litre, hence the recent price hike and artificial scarcity that drove prices as high as N1,200/litre to N1,500/litre, depending on the location.
This was done to justify selling PMS from Dangote Refinery at between N950/litre and over N1,000/litre, as proposed today.
It’s said that if you tell one lie, you need ten more to cover it. If NNPC claims that the recent price increase to N950/litre is due to the difference between landing cost and pump price, how come PMS from Dangote Refinery is sold at the same price? Is the Dangote Refinery in Malta?
Are they incurring tariffs, landing charges, clearing costs, demurrage, and other costs tied to inefficiencies in importing fuel? Do you still think we’re not being duped?
For you to know that the new PMS price from Dangote Refinery contains tax elements and is an attempt to further impoverish citizens, consider these questions:
- Why is Dangote selling AGO (diesel) and other products to the market while selling PMS only to NNPC?
- Why did the Federal Government stop Dangote Refinery from selling fuel since May 2024, even though it has been selling diesel and kerosene? If you didn’t know, there’s no way Dangote Refinery can refine diesel and other products without producing PMS as well. Stockpiling PMS since then would be wasteful, indicating the PMS being sold today was deliberately held back, awaiting the conclusion of the government’s duping strategy.
- In a responsible government, rather than creating a monopsony for NNPC and allowing Dangote Refinery to enjoy a monopoly, the Federal Government would have pushed NNPC to quickly complete the turnaround maintenance of its three refineries to compete with Dangote Refinery and drive down PMS prices. Why hasn’t this been done?
If the process is transparent, why are NNPC and Dangote Refinery fighting over the price of PMS sold? NNPC claims they bought PMS at N893/litre, while Dangote says they sold it in dollars at a price “with a lot of savings” compared to current import prices.
Fellow citizens, it’s clear that there are tax elements in the PMS price from Dangote Refinery, which explains why the Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service is involved in the so-called Presidential Technical Committee on the sale of crude oil to local refineries in Naira.
The painful truth is that despite these multiple taxes, we don’t see any positive impact on the standard of living. On the contrary, the quality of life is declining daily, and they are still taxing us on PMS produced in Lekky.///
*This article is contributed by Teddy Omusi Okumakube
