Former Cross River State Governor and 2027 presidential candidate of the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP), Donald Duke, has rejected the idea of fuel subsidy, insisting that Nigerians should pay for petrol based on the actual cost of producing the country’s crude oil rather than international market prices.
Speaking in an interview with Vanguard, Duke explained his position on subsidy and outlined a practical approach he believes could significantly lower the pump price of petrol.
Using a simple analogy, he defined subsidy as selling a product below its purchase price because consumers cannot afford the full cost. “If, for instance, you buy water at N10 and Nigerians cannot afford to pay N10 for it, and you decide that you’re going to give them at N5, then you’re subsidizing the water. That’s the ordinary meaning of subsidy,” he said. “I don’t believe there should be subsidy and I have spoken on this in several forums.”
Duke stressed that Nigeria’s crude oil is a shared national asset. “This oil is our own, right? It belongs to all of us. It’s our common wealth. Don’t look at the price of the oil in the international market,” he declared.
He noted that while Nigeria requires about 300,000 barrels of crude daily for domestic needs, the country produces roughly 1.7 million barrels, of which about 1.4 million are sold commercially. Production costs, he estimated, do not exceed $40 per barrel, even though the international selling price currently ranges between $70 and $80.
A barrel of crude yields about seven byproducts, including diesel, petrol, aviation fuel and kerosene. Duke proposed that the government should supply the two most essential products — diesel and petrol — to Nigerians at production cost, plus distribution expenses and a modest 5–10 percent margin. The remaining five byproducts, he argued, should be sold at full commercial rates. The revenue from those sales would help offset the cost of petrol.
“Sell the five other byproducts from a barrel of crude at commercial rates. If this is done, you would find that you can easily amortize this petrol, and give it to your people at N200 or N300 per litre,” Duke stated.
