This is the first time in the history of Nigeria fuel price review that market fundamentals are forcing the pump price of fuel down in a country where price of petroleum products never goes down, each time there was need to adjust price-it had always been an upward spiral movement accompanied with its attendant social and economic dislocation. Government had always manually i.e. arbitrarily fix fuel price which is indicative that the downstream oil & gas industry is not yet deregulated. Otherwise fuel price should either go up or down and not be fixed but allowed to be determined by market forces such as cost of refined product, cost of fund/finance, exchange rate, cost of shipment, international crude price, etc. The implication of new development is that Government has demonstrated that it has the will to do what is right, secondly, to alleviate the suffering of the masses and also keep our factories and manufacturing sector, which was near comatose, alive again! Some argue that the move was intended to pass on the benefit of the dropped price to Nigeria public. But I have my little reservation on this- what happens when the international crude price rises up again, will market forces be allowed to naturally jack up prices of domestic price of fuel? And with all the talk of subsidy removal, can it work without unnecessary causing inflation and untold hardship to the poor masses, which depend solely on fossil fuel for virtually everything from to power his car, home, hospitals, to run factories, move farm produce from the hinterland to urban areas? ...Only time will tell!
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