(Voice of Paul) – One of the major differences in societies in Africa and The West is that the people in the latter always hold their government responsible, and whenever their government enacts a law that will bring hardship to them, the people will collectively come together and demand a change. Currently, the Israelis are demanding that their government cut a deal with Palestine, bring home the hostages and end the war – this has resulted into a general strike in the country.
When I stumbled on the news yesterday that the Nigerian National Petroleum Company will be the sole buyer of the Dangote refinery product and then later resell to independent marketers, I realized that the Nigerian populace are not ready to change their realities. The leaders o Nigeria are visibly hell-bent on making life less enjoyable or their citizens.
Petrol as we most fondly call it in Nigeria is arguably the singular product that has an instant knock-down or push-up effect on every other commodity in Nigeria. And while Dangote was constructing its 650,000 refinery capacity, scores of millions of Nigeria were looking forward to a lowered price of petrol since the initial reason for the high price was that it was imported and bought in US Dollars and understanding that Dangote refinery is Nigerian and would not need the US Dollars, we expected a price drop.
However, with the NNPC stepping in to become the sole buyer of Dangote petrol products, it is obvious that having the sixth largest petrol refinery in the world inside Nigeria will not make the price of the commodity to be cheaper.
Do you think that NNPC becoming the sole buyer of Dangote’s petrol is an economic sabotage move against Nigerians? Should Dangote Refinery be responsible for selling its petrol products directly to whoever is interested?