The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Oil), Heineken Lokpobiri, has come under criticism after asserting that petrol is cheaper in Nigeria than in the United States.
Paul Ibe, media aide to the presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress, Atiku Abubakar, challenged the minister’s comparison, arguing that nominal pump prices do not provide a meaningful measure of affordability without considering income and purchasing power.
Ibe made his position known in a post on his X account on Wednesday, after Lokpobiri defended Nigeria’s petrol pricing during an appearance on Channels Television’s Politics Today.
Lokpobiri had said the country could not arbitrarily reduce the price of petrol to N1,000, N800 or N700 per litre because crude oil and refined petroleum products are traded in the global market.
The minister was responding to questions about why Nigerians should continue to bear the impact of international crude prices despite the country having crude oil and increasing local refining capacity.
According to Lokpobiri, Nigeria was already benefiting from local production and refining, which he said had helped keep the domestic pump price below that of the United States.
“We are already benefiting. That’s why our price is lower than that of the US,” the minister said.
He further argued that producing crude oil domestically does not automatically translate into cheaper petrol because crude oil is a globally traded commodity.
Lokpobiri noted that even if Nigeria substantially increased its crude oil production, such an increase would not materially alter international price benchmarks.
“Crude oil and refined product is a global business. Nigeria doesn’t exist in isolation,” he said.
The minister also pointed to the operations of the Dangote Refinery, explaining that the facility would similarly have to purchase crude at internationally determined prices.
However, Ibe faulted the minister’s argument, saying the comparison between petrol prices in Nigeria and the US ignored the significant difference in earnings and purchasing power between workers in both countries.
He argued that a Nigerian earning N70,000 monthly at a petrol price of about N1,400 per litre could afford only 50 litres from the monthly income.
By comparison, Ibe said four weeks of earnings at the US federal minimum wage could purchase roughly 981 litres at prevailing American pump prices.
“The real question is not whether a litre of petrol costs more in America,” Ibe argued, stressing that affordability should be assessed against income and the broader cost of living.
He said Nigerians spend a significant portion of their incomes on food, transportation, rent, electricity and healthcare, leaving households with limited purchasing power to absorb higher petrol prices.
Ibe also linked petrol costs to wider economic pressures, noting that Nigeria’s dependence on road transportation and generators means increases in fuel prices can affect the cost of food, transportation and production.
He therefore called for economic comparisons to include indicators such as petrol costs as a share of wages, real household income, food inflation, transport costs, unemployment, poverty and purchasing power.
The criticism comes amid renewed public debate over petrol prices following the latest increase by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited.
Lokpobiri, however, maintained that the Federal Government could not simply direct a reduction in pump prices, citing the deregulation of the downstream petroleum sector.
“No, we don’t. Because it is completely deregulated in line with global best standards,” he said when asked whether the Tinubu administration had a direct role in determining petrol prices.
