The media has designated what Nigerians are witnessing between Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) and Dangote Petroleum as ‘price war’. Well, going by the events around the pump price of petroleum products in the country, it is indeed a war. Between the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL) and Dangote, it is about pricing. The price war is between the two powerful institutions. One is nascent and is privately-owned while the other – a public institution – has been a constant feature in the life of Nigerians for many years. Form the layman’s view, money, so much of it, is at the root of it all. It is the type of money that could buy power and respect and domination. Without this kind of money, no private individual would dare to look the NNPCL in the eyes and do what Dangote has been doing.
But among the ordinary people of the country, it is a survival war. It is a grapple for collective survival on the part of those Nigerians on the receiving end of the impact of the war by the rich. For the ordinary Nigerian, it is a war to remain alive; a war to just live. It is war to grab at the nearest semblance of hope to be able to remain afloat in the stormy waters of Nigeria soaked badly in its petroleum pricing mystery.
Within days of announcing a reduction in the price of its petrol ex-depot, Dangote became the man. The announcement triggered hope in the people, and varying reactions followed it. This action also prompted industry analysts to assume positions which they think might be the underlying factor for Dangote’s action. It was looking like the right reactions are beginning to emanate from the liberalization of the downstream sector of the Nigerian petroleum industry. Expectedly, and in what appears to be a direct reaction to the gesture by Dangote, reports said that the pump price of petrol at NNPCL also has also been reduced. NNPCL reduced its petrol price from N950 to N880 in Abuja. There was no official statement, the type Nigerians saw from Dangote. It was just that they saw prices changed at the pumps from where it was to N860 in Lagos to match Dangote. It was promptly, and rightly, termed a reaction to the price reduction announced by Dangote. Beyond it being a reaction, Nigerians, in the same vein, felt that the NNPCL was waiting on the whims and dictates of the number one private refiner.
With the entry of Dangote in the Nigerian petroleum business, we have seen a different side of power. Indeed, we have seen the true meaning of power play among the powerful. One inevitable take-away from it all is that it can be seen that power in itself is not one insufferable bully. Power could be the clay which could be moulded into whatever we want or whatever we wish. Power could and should be a tool to make Nigeria a place to adore and not a place to abhor. But in the commonest analysis of the ordinary Nigerian, power here in the country is showing unbearable arrogance or disdainful conceit. Power is not for you, power is for them – and it is perpetually a ‘we against them’ situation here. Examples abound in large swathes…
Price war is, therefore, power play. Power play in reverse, is also price war. It is power play which has as its playground, the bowed heads of the purchasing masses. When the powerful engage in their power play, the type that is ongoing between the NNPCL and Dangote, the masses are wantonly manipulated. The manipulation, however, is such that they would be innocuously string-puppeted till their intentions are met. The poor are only unwary spectators and, like the leaves on a bush, they dance at the touch and mercy of the surging wind.
Compare what both NNPCL and Dangote are doing to the condition in which the importers of the product have found themselves. Recent reports said that landing cost of petroleum in Nigeria rose to N969 per litre in late February. Thus, for these importers of the product, it is bad business, and it is more so now given that locally refined product has its price on the downward slope in a direct, two-way competition. What this means is that those who have bypassed Dangote to go out there and import, would have to bite their fingers because the reduction in price by Dangote and NNPCL means instant loss. And there are no completely strong bases to believe that NNPCL refineries are what they said the company said they were a few months ago. Or, in your own estimation, how active are those NNPCL refineries?
It is also noteworthy to ask who these importers were rooting for when Dangote was starting out and the NNPCL was literally cackling. There were credible signs to agree with the belief in some corners of the industry that the middlemen were not completely in the middle. The middlemen were seen to be a little more to the right on the side of the NNPCL against Dangote, which has naturally assumed the position of a leftist in this case. The reports are still there. With Dangote reducing its ex-depot petrol price, and with NNPCL trailing right behind with the same token, we seem to be heading somewhere. Nigerians must not lose sight of the fact that this is the second price reduction in 2025 alone. And, this is the third price reduction episode in a space of just two months. But why are the importers not crying out? Who are these middlemen and where are they getting their fillers from?
Reno Omokri in his sycophantic astuteness made a post recently on the ongoing Ramadan fast and the prices of commodities. The post was meant to say that the Bola Tinubu administration had set a record of being the one which ensured reduction in the prices of commodities rather than the rise the country was used to. In the post on his X handle, he listed the reduction in the price of petroleum as ‘a crash’ in the price of petrol. Omokri, in his now characteristic Tinubu-fawning role said other sweet nothings about our badly fatigued economy. He made a list of other factors which he said were records achieved in Nigeria under the administration of Tinubu. Indeed, he did a good job of shielding the administration from the anger of Nigerians and gave a façade that appears beautiful enough to assuage a weary, struggling but unwary ordinary Nigerian.
However, as much as he tried, Omokri left so many things to imagination. He tactfully chose to avoid the current ‘price war’ between the NNPCL and Dangote and its long-term implication for Nigerians. He also did not trace the root cause of the current economic turmoil and conveniently ignored the pronouncement of President Tinubu on May 29, 2023 which triggered the current economic cataclysm in the country. His unprepared pronouncement led us here and I do not think that so many mellifluous words would cover the mess.
So far, we can beat our chests and ask what wars have Nigerians not faced? We have experienced the confusion of May 29, 2023 which was ignited at the venue of the inauguration of the Tinubu administration. The conditional relationship that exists among the many actors in the price war has left us with more questions than answers. “Now that President Trump is threatening to increase the US crude oil reserve, it could push prices further down, leading to a downward review of petroleum product prices. So, it is a two-edged sword. For now, it favours consumers to the detriment of producers. Tomorrow, the table can turn,” contends Aisha Mohammed, an analyst at the Centre for Development Studies. So, what happens when the table turns? Where would Dangote and NNPCL leave hapless Nigerians? More than 6 million litres of petrol was said to have been imported to Nigeria in the past six or so months. Who is covering for the loss of these importers?
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