Fuel price debate: Nigeria can’t export oil wealth, import all suffering

 

By The Conscience Chronicler

There is a question the Honourable Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Professor Taiwo Oyedele, must answer not merely as an economist, not merely as a member of President Bola Tinubu’s government, and certainly not as a defender of a policy inherited from his administration, but as a public officer entrusted with the economic welfare of millions of Nigerians.

When will Nigerians begin to enjoy a tangible, measurable dividend from being citizens of an oil-producing country? I ask because there is something profoundly unsettling about our national predicament.

Nigeria produces crude oil. We export crude oil. We have invested enormous resources in petroleum infrastructure. We now possess a major domestic refinery capable of transforming the country’s petroleum landscape. Our government collects revenue from oil and gas.

Yet, when international events disrupt petroleum supplies, the Nigerian household is expected to absorb the shock almost as though Nigeria had no oil beneath its soil, no refining ambition, no fiscal instruments, and no responsibility to protect its citizens from extreme economic distress.

The price of petrol rises. Transport fares rise. Food becomes more expensive. Businesses raise prices. Generators consume more money. The cost of moving goods from farms to markets increases. Workers spend a greater proportion of their salaries merely getting to work. Families postpone medical treatment, withdraw children from some educational opportunities, reduce meals and abandon plans that once seemed achievable.

The government explains the global market.
We understand the global market. What we do not accept is the suggestion that understanding the market must mean surrendering every meaningful instrument of domestic protection to it.

The Strait of Hormuz may be thousands of kilometres away. A conflict in the Gulf may be beyond Nigeria’s control. International freight charges may rise. Crude oil may become more expensive. Refined petroleum products may become scarcer. But Nigeria’s policy response is not beyond Nigeria’s control.

The international shock may be external. The degree of suffering it imposes on Nigerian households is partly a domestic policy choice.
Minister, Nigerians are not disputing economics. They are asking for economic justice.

Let me begin with what should be acknowledged fairly. A blanket fuel subsidy can become extraordinarily expensive. It can encourage smuggling, benefit high-volume consumers disproportionately, create opportunities for fraud, distort investment decisions and impose enormous pressure on public finances.

A government that borrows heavily to subsidise consumption may leave future generations with debt while failing to invest in the infrastructure that would make fuel, transport and electricity more affordable. Nor should Nigeria return unthinkingly to the opaque subsidy regime of the past.

We have lived through its allegations of fraudulent claims, disputed volumes, fiscal uncertainty and the diversion of petroleum products across borders. We should not romanticise that experience. But rejecting the old subsidy regime does not settle the argument. The real question is what should replace it.

When a government removes a major price support from an economy in which millions of households have limited savings, inadequate public transport, expensive electricity and weak social protection, it is not enough to announce that market efficiency will eventually make everyone better off.

Eventually is not a social-protection programme. Potential benefits are not food on the table. A stronger Federation Account is not automatically a stronger household economy. And higher government revenue is not proof that the average Nigerian is better off.

The Minister says that subsidy removal released ₦15.8 trillion to the Federation between June 2023 and December 2025, including ₦10.4 trillion distributed to state and local governments. These are significant government-reported figures.

But they raise a question that cannot be answered by citing the amounts alone: what measurable improvements in living standards can be attributed to those additional resources? The distinction matters because the reported ₦15.8 trillion was not a separate pile of cash sitting in a dedicated account. It represents estimated additional resources available to the Federation relative to a counterfactual.

The government’s own explanation recognises that the funds flowed through the Federation Account and that the Federal Government also borrowed and generated additional revenue during the period.

Therefore, Nigerians deserve a properly reconciled account of the resources generated, the expenditure financed, the debt obligations incurred, the programmes delivered and the outcomes achieved. Not another victory lap. Not another declaration that the economy has stabilised.

An independently verifiable account instead is needed. Because the ordinary Nigerian does not experience the Federation Account as an abstract financial achievement, he experiences the economy through the price of food, the cost of transport, the quality of the nearest hospital, the availability of electricity, the security of his community and what remains of his salary after meeting essential needs.

A reform cannot be judged solely by how much money it releases to the government. It must also be judged by what happens to the people from and for whom the money, directly or indirectly, is released.

The arithmetic in the Minister’s argument deserves scrutiny. The Minister’s speech states that Nigeria consumes roughly 50 million litres of petrol daily and that restoring the pre-reform price would cost more than ₦20 trillion annually. It further states that a price of ₦500 per litre, as proposed by some advocates of cheaper fuel, would cost over ₦16 trillion annually. These are enormous numbers. They deserve transparent calculations.

Let us begin with the arithmetic that can be checked. At 50 million litres daily, A subsidy of ₦100 per litre costs ₦5 billion daily. A subsidy of ₦200 per litre costs ₦10 billion daily. A subsidy of ₦500 per litre costs ₦25 billion daily. Annualised over 365 days, those amounts become: ₦1.825 trillion, ₦3.650 trillion, and ₦9.125 trillion, respectively. These calculations are illustrative. They assume constant consumption, a fixed support amount per litre and 365 days of coverage.

They exclude administrative costs, changes in demand, financing costs, supply disruptions and other market effects. But they establish something important. At 50 million litres daily, a ₦500-per-litre price support does not produce ₦16 trillion in annual expenditure. It produces approximately ₦9.13 trillion.

To reach ₦16 trillion at that consumption level, the support would need to average about ₦877 per litre. Alternatively, a ₦500 support would require average daily consumption of approximately 87.7 million litres to generate that annual bill. Perhaps the Minister has used a different consumption estimate, a different price gap, or a broader calculation that includes other costs. If so, he should publish the assumptions and calculations.

The same scrutiny must apply to the claim that restoring the pre-reform price would cost more than ₦20 trillion. The answer depends on the reference price, the actual market price, the volume consumed, the exchange rate, the cost of supply and the precise definition of the intervention. The public deserves to see the model.

This is not an argument that a ₦500 price is affordable, desirable or fiscally prudent. It is an argument that the arithmetic used to reject a policy must be as transparent as the arithmetic used to defend it. If the government wants Nigerians to trust difficult economic choices, it must not ask them to suspend their own intelligence.

Why must the Nigerian consumer absorb the global shock almost in full? The Minister is justified in one basic economic reality: crude oil is internationally traded, and its price affects the opportunity cost of selling it domestically.

A Nigerian producer can often earn more by exporting crude when international prices rise. A domestic refinery processing that crude must still account for the value of the feedstock, refining costs, financing, logistics, product yields, distribution and other expenses.

If the naira depreciates, imported equipment, spare parts and some inputs also become more expensive. Local refining does not magically abolish these costs. But neither does the existence of international prices mean that Nigeria is powerless to cushion domestic consumers. Oil-producing countries have several instruments available to them.

They can save part of exceptional petroleum revenue in stabilisation funds, use transparent fiscal rules to finance temporary relief, maintain strategic stocks, diversify energy sources, improve domestic refining and distribution, and direct assistance towards households and sectors most exposed to energy-price shocks.

The question is not whether Nigeria can make petrol immune to global events. It cannot. The question is whether Nigeria can prevent every major global price movement from becoming a full-blown domestic cost-of-living crisis. It can do much more than it currently does. Consider the position of an oil-producing country during a price spike.

The higher international price can increase government revenue from the barrels it sells, depending on actual production, fiscal terms, costs, contractual obligations and the share of revenue that reaches government. At the same time, consumers face higher prices for petrol, diesel, transport, food and electricity. This creates a distributional question: who receives the upside, and who bears the downside?

If government receives additional revenue while households pay more for essentials, a portion of genuinely additional and available public revenue can be used to cushion the most severe effects. That is not necessarily a blanket subsidy.

It is a fiscal stabilisation policy. The amount must be calculated from actual revenue received, not imagined windfalls. It must also account for the possibility that production declines, oil prices fall, or debt-service obligations absorb the gains. But the principle is sound: When an oil-price shock imposes exceptional costs on Nigerian households, Nigeria should have a transparent mechanism through which exceptional, realised petroleum gains can help absorb part of those costs. Why should the country possess the resource but lack a credible mechanism for sharing the protection that the resource can provide?

Nigeria must stop confusing an oil producer with an oil-price taker. The Minister says the impact of higher crude prices is mixed: the country may benefit through revenue, while households and businesses suffer higher costs. That is true. But the policy response should not end with describing the contradiction. It should address it. Nigeria’s crude production has been constrained over the years by theft, operational problems, underinvestment, pipeline disruptions and other challenges.

More recently, the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission reported that crude production reached approximately 1.50 million barrels daily in August 2026, excluding condensates, meeting Nigeria’s OPEC quota for the fourth consecutive month.

That is encouraging. It is also a reminder that production levels, export commitments and the actual barrels available to the Federation matter enormously.

Nigeria may not promise consumers an unlimited domestic oil-price cushion while producing below its potential, servicing debt, meeting contractual commitments and financing public services. But it can make better use of the petroleum value chain. First, it can improve production reliability and reduce losses. Second, it can ensure that the fiscal benefits of oil-price windfalls are transparently calculated.

Third, it can establish a stabilisation mechanism that accumulates resources when conditions are favourable and releases them under clearly defined conditions when external shocks become severe. Fourth, it can make domestic refining a genuine instrument of energy security rather than merely a source of national pride.

And fifth, it can stop treating the domestic consumer as the residual claimant who must absorb every cost left unresolved by the system.

Local refining must deliver more than the satisfaction of saying, “We now refine our own fuel.” Nigeria’s domestic refining capacity has changed the debate. The ability to refine significant quantities of petroleum locally can reduce dependence on imported finished products, improve supply resilience, create jobs, support industrial development and potentially reduce some logistics costs. But we must distinguish local refining from cheap fuel.

A refinery like the NNPC’s or Dangote’s can be located in Nigeria and still price its products in line with the economic value of selling them in the Nigerian market or exporting them elsewhere. Its crude feedstock has an opportunity cost. Its equipment, debt and operating expenses must be financed. It must earn a return sufficient to sustain operations.

That is expected. A refinery that cannot recover its costs will eventually struggle to maintain operations or invest in expansion. But Nigeria should not invest in domestic refining and then fail to ask how that capacity can contribute to national resilience.

The solution is not to force private refiners to sell indefinitely below sustainable cost. That would create another hidden subsidy, possibly paid through delayed crude payments, regulatory pressure, opaque discounts, or losses shifted onto another public institution.

The solution is to establish clear, transparent arrangements, including A domestic refining compact. I propose that the Federal Government, NNPC Limited, regulators, domestic refiners and other relevant stakeholders publish a framework covering: (i) Crude supply commitments: the quantities of suitable crude available to domestic refineries, subject to production capacity, contractual obligations and export commitment.

Transparent pricing: a published methodology for calculating the domestic crude price, including the treatment of freight, quality differences, exchange rates and any policy discount. (iii) Product pricing: regular publication of the major components of petrol prices — crude feedstock, refining, financing, distribution, taxes and margins — subject to legitimate commercial confidentiality.

Supply and performance: monthly data on refinery utilisation, domestic product availability, imports, exports and product quality. (v) Emergency obligations: a legally defined framework for temporary cooperation during exceptional supply disruptions, with compensation and cost recovery where appropriate.

(vi) Competition safeguards: rules that prevent both public and private operators from exploiting an emergency through artificial scarcity, unjustified margins or anti-competitive conduct.

The point is not to nationalise the refining industry through the back door. It is to ensure that the strategic importance of domestic refining translates into measurable national benefits. If a refinery’s location in Nigeria creates resilience, that resilience should be measured.

If local production reduces freight and import-related costs, the savings should be identified. If the country becomes less exposed to imported finished products, that reduction in exposure should be reported. If domestic refining does not materially lower prices because the crude opportunity cost remains the dominant component, the public should be told that honestly. Local refining is an opportunity to improve energy security.

It is not, by itself, proof that Nigerians are receiving a fair share of the opportunity.
6. My proposal: a Nigerian Petroleum Price Stabilisation Mechanism. I am not proposing a return to the old, open-ended subsidy regime. I am proposing a transparent mechanism to moderate extreme volatility, protect vulnerable households and preserve fiscal discipline.

Call it the Nigerian Petroleum Price Stabilisation Mechanism. Its purpose would be limited and explicit: to prevent extraordinary global price shocks from causing disproportionate harm to Nigerian households and productive sectors. It should have five components:
(i) A petroleum windfall reserve – When petroleum revenues materially exceed a conservative budget benchmark, a defined share of the additional realised net revenue should be placed in a stabilisation reserve.

This must not be based simply on a higher Brent price. The government must calculate the actual revenue received after considering production volumes, contractual terms, costs, revenue-sharing arrangements and other relevant obligations. A price spike accompanied by a production collapse may not produce the windfall people imagine.

Likewise, a high oil price does not automatically mean the Federation has cash available for immediate expenditure. The mechanism should therefore use actual receipts and verified fiscal data.

(ii) A clear trigger for intervention. Relief should begin only when published criteria are met. For example, the government could define a severe external energy shock as a sustained increase in an independently calculated import-parity or product-cost benchmark beyond a predetermined threshold. The precise trigger should be set after a technical assessment.

It should not be chosen to manufacture a politically convenient petrol price. The trigger could consider the scale and duration of the shock, the effect on domestic prices, the condition of the stabilisation reserve and the available fiscal space.

(iii) A cap on the public exposure – Every intervention should have a published maximum cost and duration. A temporary price-support programme might run for 30, 60 or 90 days, subject to review and renewal only if the trigger remains active and funding is available.

No open-ended commitment. No unbudgeted liability hidden in NNPC Limited. No indefinite instruction to refiners to absorb losses and recover them later without a transparent account of who ultimately bears the cost.

(iv) An exit rule – When the shock subsides, the intervention should taper off according to a published schedule. The government should avoid abrupt changes that create another round of price instability. But it must not continue as a temporary measure simply because withdrawing it has become politically uncomfortable.

(v) Independent reporting – The Ministry of Finance, the petroleum regulators and the relevant fiscal authorities should publish a quarterly report showing the trigger, the funding source, the amount spent, the number of beneficiaries, the price effect and the remaining balance. The Auditor-General and other legally authorised oversight bodies should have access to the underlying records.

This is how Nigeria can build a buffer without recreating the opacity of the past that opened the oil industry to such calamitous corruption.

Let us put realistic numbers to the proposal. A stabilisation policy must be judged by its actual cost, not its attractive name. Assume, for illustration, that petrol consumption averages 50 million litres per day. This is the volume used in the Minister’s own argument, not a claim that actual daily consumption will always remain constant.

Suppose the government introduces a temporary support of ₦100 per litre. The gross cost would be: ₦5 billion daily; ₦150 billion for a 30-day month; approximately ₦456 billion for 91 days; ₦1.825 trillion for a full year. At ₦200 per litre, the cost doubles: ₦10 billion daily; ₦300 billion for 30 days; approximately ₦912 billion for 91 days; ₦3.65 trillion for a full year.

These figures demonstrate why a blanket, indefinite price subsidy is dangerous. But they also show that temporary interventions can be designed with explicit costs and limits. For example, a 30-day intervention of ₦100 per litre, at the assumed consumption level, would cost about ₦150 billion before administrative costs and behavioural changes. That is not a trivial sum.

It is also a different fiscal proposition from committing to an open-ended subsidy for every litre consumed indefinitely. The question then becomes whether the country has genuinely realised sufficient additional petroleum revenue or other legally available funding to justify that intervention and whether the intervention delivers greater public value than alternative forms of support.

The answer should be determined by published evidence, not by political instinct.
An even better approach: target the burden, not every litre. The state need not subsidise the same quantity of petrol for a luxury vehicle and a commercial vehicle carrying food to market.

Nor must it subsidise every litre consumed by a household generator in the same way it supports public transport used by millions of commuters. A targeted approach can achieve more relief for each naira spent. Consider a transport-support programme covering five million eligible low-income households, workers or other carefully defined beneficiaries.

If each receives ₦20,000 monthly for three months, the gross cost would be: 5 million × ₦20,000 × 3 = ₦300 billion. If the programme covers ten million beneficiaries at the same amount for three months, the cost rises to ₦600 billion. These are illustrative scenarios, not claims about the number of eligible Nigerian households or a recommendation to pay all beneficiaries through the same mechanism.

Eligibility would need to be carefully designed, with existing social registers verified, duplication reduced and exclusion errors independently assessed.

A better programme might also provide transport vouchers directly through registered operators, especially where reliable public transport services exist. The benefit is that support goes to people whose purchasing power has been most severely damaged, rather than automatically increasing the subsidy received by those who consume the most fuel.

However, targeted support is not a magic solution. Nigeria must improve beneficiary identification, payment integrity, grievance mechanisms and public reporting. A badly administered targeted programme can exclude the people it was designed to help, as is usually the case in Nigeria.

The choice is not between a perfect blanket subsidy and a perfect targeted programme. It is between different policy instruments whose costs, benefits and risks must be made explicit.

What about the Minister’s proposed ₦1,350 price ceiling? The proposed ceiling deserves a serious examination. The Minister says the government is negotiating a ₦1,350-per-litre ceiling on the ex-gantry or landing cost of petrol, with refiners and importers expected to absorb costs above the ceiling and recover them later when market conditions improve.

He argues that this is price modulation rather than a subsidy or price control. But terminology does not determine economic incidence. If a company sells a product below its current economic cost and expects to recover the difference later, someone is financing the gap. It may be the company through its working capital. It may be a lender through additional credit. It may be a supplier through deferred payment.

It may be a government entity through an indirect arrangement. Or it may ultimately be the consumer, through a future price adjustment.

The critical question is not what we call the policy. It is who carries the cost, how the cost is recorded and whether the recovery mechanism is credible. If the arrangement is genuinely a smoothing mechanism, it needs a published formula showing: the reference price; the period over which costs are averaged; the treatment of exchange-rate movements; the treatment of crude and freight costs; the losses or deferred costs accumulated; the conditions for recovery; the maximum permissible exposure; the treatment of a prolonged price shock; and the process for independent verification.

A ceiling that creates an unlimited liability for private refiners is not sustainable. A ceiling that merely delays a necessary price increase without a funded mechanism may create a bigger shock later. A ceiling that is transparent, time-limited, properly financed and commercially credible could, however, form part of a broader stabilisation framework. The government must show the workings.

If subsidy removal releases ₦15.8 trillion, let the public see the dividend. The Minister’s speech points to additional Federation resources and argues that the savings helped states pay salaries, supported public spending and contributed to macroeconomic stabilisation. These claims deserve scrutiny.

States and local governments have substantial responsibilities for public services. Additional allocations can create room for salaries, infrastructure, primary healthcare, schools and other programmes. But the existence of additional allocations does not prove that the benefits reached citizens equitably or efficiently.

The Nigerian Employers’ Consultative Association has itself called for accountability regarding the resources received by states and local governments following subsidy removal. I therefore propose a Subsidy-Reform Dividend Ledger. It should be published jointly by the relevant federal fiscal authorities and the states, with independent verification.

For every quarter, Nigerians should be able to see: the estimated additional resources generated by the reform; the methodology used to estimate them; the actual amounts received by each tier of government; the amounts spent on transport, healthcare, education, social protection, electricity, agriculture and security; the specific projects and programmes funded; the beneficiaries reached; the outcomes achieved; the outstanding liabilities and debts associated with the period; the audit findings and corrective actions.

The ledger should distinguish additional revenue from borrowing. Borrowed money may finance worthwhile investments, but it should never be presented as though it were a subsidy saving. It should also distinguish allocations from expenditure, and expenditure from outcomes. Money allocated is not necessarily money spent.

Money spent is not necessarily money well spent. And money well spent in an accounting sense does not necessarily mean that the poorest households experienced meaningful relief. That is why the ledger must include measurable outcomes.

For example, how many additional primary healthcare facilities now provide reliable services? How many low-income commuters received transport support? How much did average transport costs change in supported corridors? How many vulnerable households received cash transfers on time?

How many schools received additional funding, and what improved? How much did agricultural logistics costs change in targeted programmes? What independent evidence shows that the funded programmes improved household welfare? The public should not have to rely on speeches to discover whether reforms are working. If the reform has created fiscal space, the dividend should be visible in public accounts and in ordinary people’s lives.

The answer to expensive petrol is not only cheaper petrol. This is where the solution must become more ambitious. Nigeria’s excessive dependence on petrol is itself an avoidable vulnerability. When transport depends on private cars, informal minibuses, ageing commercial vehicles and expensive generators, a rise in petrol prices spreads rapidly through the economy. The country must reduce that exposure.

On public transport, Federal and state governments should establish well-managed bus systems along high-demand urban and intercity corridors, using competitive procurement and transparent operating contracts. The CNG project should concentrate it’s impact here. CNG buses may be appropriate where reliable gas supply, refuelling infrastructure, maintenance capacity and safety standards are in place.

Electric buses may be appropriate on routes where charging infrastructure and electricity economics support them. But the government should publish the total cost of ownership, not merely announce the number of vehicles purchased. The relevant measures are: passengers carried daily; cost per passenger-kilometre; service reliability; fares paid; fuel or energy consumed; maintenance expenditure; emissions; and the proportion of operating savings passed on to passengers.

A bus programme that purchases vehicles but fails to maintain them is not public transport reform. It is another capital expenditure programme.

On freight and agricultural logistics, the cost of moving food is central to the cost-of-living crisis. Government should identify key food-producing regions and high-volume corridors where poor roads, traffic, informal levies, insecurity and inefficient distribution increase prices.

A targeted logistics programme could support safer freight movement, more efficient loading and storage, better market access, and competition among transport providers. It should be measured by changes in farm-gate prices, wholesale prices, delivery times, spoilage and retail prices, not merely kilometres of road announced or completed.

On electricity, millions of households and businesses rely on petrol and diesel generators because the grid supply is inadequate or unreliable. That makes fuel-price shocks even more damaging. Nigeria should therefore treat dependable electricity as an essential part of energy-price stabilisation.

The government should publish progress on generation, transmission, distribution, metering, service reliability and the cost of power to households and small businesses. Renewable energy, storage, gas-fired generation and grid investment all have roles, depending on location and economics. The objective is not to select one technology as a political slogan. It is to reduce the amount of expensive fuel that households and businesses must purchase merely to obtain electricity.

Regarding agriculture, agricultural producers need more than occasional fertiliser distribution. They need reliable transport, storage, irrigation where viable, access to markets, appropriate mechanisation, security and affordable working capital. If the cost of petrol rises, the effect on farmers and food prices should be measured and addressed through the channels that matter most.

A government that stabilises transport and agricultural logistics can reduce inflationary pressure without attempting to control every price in the economy.

The corruption question cannot be separated from the subsidy question. The Minister is asking Nigerians to accept that a large price-support programme would be dangerous because it could weaken the public finances.

That is a legitimate argument. But it creates a second obligation. Government must demonstrate comparable seriousness in preventing waste, corruption, unjustified expenditure and the diversion of public resources. Citizens are understandably frustrated when they are told that public finances cannot sustain relief while allegations of large-scale corruption, waste and abuse of office continue to circulate. An allegation is not a conviction, and public criticism must not become a substitute for evidence.

But credible allegations involving public resources should be investigated transparently, and proven wrongdoing should have consequences. The same fiscal discipline demanded of a fuel-support programme must apply to public procurement, tax expenditures, government-owned entities, politically connected contractors, inflated project costs and public-sector financial management.

A government cannot credibly demand sacrifice from citizens while appearing indifferent to waste at the top. If the country cannot afford a poorly designed subsidy, it cannot afford poorly designed contracts.

If the country cannot afford to pay for fuel relief without a funding plan, it cannot afford to approve expensive public projects without transparent value-for-money assessments. If every naira must be justified when the beneficiary is an ordinary household, every naira should also be justified when the beneficiary is a contractor, official or politically influential institution.

Fiscal discipline must not be a doctrine applied only to people with low incomes.

Is the timing political? The answer is less important than the test of sincerity. The Minister’s intervention comes amid mounting public frustration and the approach of the 2027 presidential election. It is reasonable for citizens to scrutinise the timing of major policy announcements during an election cycle. It is not, by itself, proof that the policy is motivated solely by electoral considerations.

The more useful test is whether the proposed measures are economically coherent, adequately funded, transparently administered and sustained beyond the immediate political moment. If the government is genuinely responding to hardship, it should welcome independent monitoring.

It should publish the price-ceiling formula. It should publish the cost of the NNPC discount. It should explain the source of funding for additional support. It should report the number of people reached. It should identify which interventions will end after 30 days and which will become permanent institutions. It should commit to reporting results after the election as well as before it.

And if a proposal proves ineffective, the government should revise it. The public does not need another political contest over who loves Nigerians more. It needs a policy framework that makes it possible to determine whether Nigerians are actually better off.

My practical ten-point proposal to the Minister. I would therefore invite Professor Oyedele and the Federal Government to consider the following package. First: Publish the full assumptions behind the fuel-subsidy cost calculations, including daily consumption, reference prices, the support per litre, exchange rates and sensitivity analysis.

Second: Publish the detailed formula and legal basis for the proposed ₦1,350 price ceiling, including how deferred costs would be financed and recovered. Third: Establish a transparent Petroleum Price Stabilisation Reserve funded only from legally available and independently verified exceptional petroleum revenues. Fourth: Set a defined intervention trigger, maximum fiscal exposure, duration and exit rule for any temporary fuel-price support. Fifth: Prioritise targeted transport assistance and support for vulnerable households over an unlimited subsidy for every litre consumed.

Sixth: Negotiate and publish a transparent domestic-refining framework that balances commercial viability with national energy security. Seventh: Publish a quarterly Subsidy-Reform Dividend Ledger covering federal, state and local government resources, spending and outcomes. Eighth: Accelerate public transport, freight efficiency, electricity reliability and agricultural logistics programmes, using independently measurable performance targets.

Ninth: Strengthen competition and regulatory enforcement against artificial scarcity, collusion, unjustified margins, adulteration and under-dispensing, with due process and public reporting. Tenth: Commission an independent assessment of the distributional effects of subsidy removal, including effects on real wages, transport costs, food affordability, household energy expenditure and poverty.

These are not demands for unlimited public spending. There are demands for a better-designed public policy. They acknowledge that Nigeria has fiscal constraints, but they reject the idea that fiscal constraints excuse the absence of people-focused strategic planning. They acknowledge that global prices matter, but they reject the idea that international volatility must be transmitted to households without meaningful cushioning.

They acknowledge that markets have a role, but they insist that market reforms must operate within a framework of competition, transparency, resilience and social responsibility.

The Minister has invited ideas. Professor Oyedele says the government is open to proposals that can answer three questions: What will they cost? How will they be funded sustainably? What pump price will they deliver? I welcome that challenge. My proposal answers it as follows: Cost: A temporary support of ₦100 per litre at an assumed 50 million litres daily would cost approximately ₦150 billion for 30 days, before administrative costs and behavioural changes.

A targeted transport-support programme for five million eligible beneficiaries at ₦20,000 monthly for three months would cost ₦300 billion. These are alternative illustrative scenarios, not cumulative commitments; neither should be implemented without verified eligibility, a credible funding source and an assessment of the expected benefits.

Funding: Use only legally available, realised and independently verified additional petroleum revenue where the fiscal position permits. Any support must be capped, transparently appropriated and reported. If the funds are unavailable, the government must say so and adjust the scope rather than create hidden liabilities. Price outcome: A ₦100-per-litre intervention would reduce the eligible supported price by ₦100 per litre if the full benefit is passed through.

It would not guarantee a particular national pump price because crude costs, exchange rates, freight, refining margins, distribution costs and other factors continue to move. A targeted transport programme would instead seek a measurable reduction in fares for beneficiaries, with the amount determined by route economics and transparent contracts.

This is a more honest framework than promising an arbitrary national pump price without showing who pays the difference. I would add a fourth question: How will we know that the intervention worked? Because the purpose of economic policy is not to win an argument at a press conference. It is to improve people’s lives.

In conclusion, I submit that an oil-producing country must offer more than explanations.

Let us be clear. Nigeria cannot insulate itself completely from global oil prices. Domestic refining does not abolish the opportunity cost of crude. A blanket subsidy can be wasteful and fiscally dangerous. And no responsible government should promise a cheap petrol price without explaining the cost and the funding. But none of these facts absolves the Nigerian state of the responsibility to build resilience.

The government should not have to choose between an unlimited subsidy and leaving households to absorb every shock.
There is a third path: transparent stabilisation, targeted protection, credible domestic refining arrangements, strategic reserves, competitive markets, reliable public transport, dependable electricity and strict accountability for the use of public resources.

That is the path I am advocating. And it begins with a simple change in the question. Instead of asking only, “How do we prevent the return of fuel subsidy?” the government must also ask: “How do we ensure that an oil-producing Nigeria never again leaves ordinary households so exposed to an energy-price shock that they must choose between transport, food, healthcare and education?”

The two questions are not enemies. They are the two halves of responsible economic management. A reform that protects the public finances but leaves households unable to meet essential needs is incomplete. A relief programme that eases today’s hardship by creating tomorrow’s fiscal crisis is also incomplete.

Nigeria needs both fiscal sustainability and human sustainability. It needs markets that work, institutions that can be trusted and public resources that can be traced. Above all, it needs a government that understands that the purpose of economic reform is not to prove that a policy is theoretically correct.

It is to make the economy work better for the people who live in it. When oil prices rise, Nigeria should have a plan. When oil prices fall, Nigeria should have a plan. When refineries operate, Nigeria should measure the benefits. When the government collects additional revenue, Nigeria should see the dividend. When public resources are wasted, someone should answer. And when millions of households are under severe pressure, the government should respond with more than explanations.

Nigerians are not asking for an economy that defies every law of economics. They are asking for an economy whose laws do not seem to operate with relentless force against people with low incomes while privilege remains remarkably well protected. That is the deeper issue.

The fuel-price debate is not simply about petrol. It is about the distribution of national risk, the management of national wealth and the obligations of a state towards its citizens.
Nigeria produces crude oil. Nigeria is building domestic refining capacity. Nigeria has capable economists, entrepreneurs, engineers, public servants and financial institutions. What Nigeria must now demonstrate is the ability to turn these advantages into a durable system of economic protection and opportunity.

The Minister has invited ideas. Here is mine: Do not return unthinkingly to the old subsidy. Do not defend the present hardship as though it were an unavoidable law of nature. Build a transparent mechanism that shares genuine petroleum windfalls, cushions exceptional shocks, rewards productive investment and makes the public dividend measurable.

Let the calculations be published. Let the costs be capped. Let the beneficiaries be identified. Let the results be audited. Let the failures be corrected. And let the people see the difference because the ultimate test of economic reform is not whether the government can defend it in a speech.

It is whether a Nigerian who goes to bed worried about tomorrow can eventually wake up with a little more security, a little more purchasing power and a credible reason to believe that the sacrifices of today are building a better country. That is the reform dividend Nigerians are waiting for.

The Conscience Chronicler.