The pump price of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) at The Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited’s filling stations was raised yesterday from N179 per litre to N194 per litre.
This occurred after weeks of gasoline shortages returned to the nation as protracted fuel queues formed at numerous filling stations.
NNPC filling stations in the Abuja and Lagos metropolitan areas adjusted their price boards to show between N184 and N194 per litre for PMS, even though no official notice was visible.
When approached, Mallam GarbaDeen Muhammad, the NNPCL’s group corporate communications officer, stated that the company does not control the pump price of PMS.
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“Kindly find out from the NMDPRA what the approved pump price is. That should answer your question. NNPC Ltd does not determine the pump price of PMS,” he said.
As calls and texts to its spokesman, Kimchi Apollo, went unanswered, the Nigerian Midstream Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), which is in charge of overseeing operations in the midstream and downstream sectors, chose to remain silent about the development.
While TechnOil at Hamadiyyah on the Lagos Abeokuta Expressway was selling for N220 per litre, the NNPC retail outlet in Ile-Epo Oja in the Alimosho Local Government area of Lagos State is selling for N184.
These changes suggest that the federal government may have started to gradually remove the gasoline subsidy as the product’s pump price simultaneously increased to above N185 per litre on Thursday.
The government had previously stated that the withdrawal would be implemented in April 2023, which was nearly three months sooner than the planned schedule for ending all expenditures.
Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, the minister of finance, budget, and national planning, hinted during an interview with ARISE TV on Tuesday that the removal of subsidies appears to be the stance taken by every candidate running for president of the nation in the general elections that will take place at the end of the month in Davos, Switzerland.
She remarked: “What will be safer is for the current administration to, maybe at the beginning of the second quarter, start removing the fuel subsidy, because it’s more expedient if you remove it gradually than to wait and move it all in one big swoop”.
