The Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, on Wednesday morning, instructed all marketers to adjust retail prices for the premium motor spirit to a range between N488 to N555 per litre.
By Emma Ogbuehi
Despite the assurance given on Tuesday by President Bola Tinubu that subsidy removal will not take immediate effect, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited may have spurned the presidential directive.
This is because the NNPCL started implementing the policy wholesale on Wednesday.
In what appeared to be backtracking contrary to his unequivocal pronouncement during his inaugural speech on Monday that fuel subsidy was gone, a pronouncement that led to immediate scarcity of the product and nationwide chaos, Tinubu had assured on Tuesday that the policy will not start immediately.
The Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Media Centre explained that the announcement of the removal of the fuel subsidy on Monday will no longer take immediate effect.
The Centre, in a statement, urged the public to refrain from the panic-buying that ensued as a result of the president’s pronouncement.
But despite the assurance, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, on Wednesday morning, instructed all marketers to adjust retail prices for the premium motor spirit to a range between N488 to N555 per litre.
The instruction, which hit marketers early today, cited management approval of the upward review of NNPC PMS pump price table for Mega/Standard/Leased Stations.
The new table of retail prices for different geopolitical zones of the country to be effected by retail managers was instructed to take immediate effect beginning from May 31, 2023.
“DEAR ALL. Following Management approval of the Upward review of NNPC PMS pump price as in below table for Mega/Standard/Leased Stations, Please find below schedules for the RMSs and Wayne to handle. Please implement meter change as approved effective today 31st May 2023. Wayne is to attend to all locations as relates to their area of coverage in our network,” the statement, which TheNiche sighted, read.
According to the new price schedule, petrol will sell highest in Maiduguri, Borno State, and Damaturu, Yobe State, at N557 per litre, and N550 per litre in the rest of the Northeast zone.
Residents of Birnin Kebbi will buy petrol at N545 to lead prices in Northwest zone. Average price in the North Central zone will be N537 per liter except in Illorin where it will sell for N515 per liter.
Consumers in the Southeast will buy at an average of N520 per liter.
Apart from Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, and Yenegoa, Bayelsa State, where petrol will now sell at N515 per litre, the rest of the South-south zone will get the product at N511 per litre.
Consumers in Lagos will buy the product at N488 per litre while the rest of the Southwest zone will get the product at N500 per litre.
Petrol stations across the country have already adjusted their pump prices accordingly.
The NNPC filling station on Awolowo Road, Ikoyi Lagos has adjusted its pump price to reflect the new reality.
At the NNPC mega filling station, Lagos bus-stop in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, the price of PMS has been adjusted to N511.
But motorists are not driving in to buy the product.
There is apprehension in town that with subsidy removal and full deregulation of the downstream sector, independent marketers may sell the product much higher than the NNPC.