I said it then, and I ask again today: when petroleum marketers were locked in a fierce disagreement with Aliko Dangote over the emergence of his refinery, Nigerians were, in an unintended way, beneficiaries of that confrontation.
At the time, fuel was selling around ₦730 per litre. Their disagreement appeared to have created a price contest, and competition, whether by design or circumstance, was working in the interest of consumers.
The central economic tension was not difficult to understand. Dangote’s refinery represented a fundamental disruption of a business model that had depended heavily on petroleum importation. For marketers, the emergence of a large domestic refinery potentially threatened an established and highly profitable structure.
For Dangote, however, the refinery represented something bigger: an attempt to alter the architecture of Nigeria’s downstream petroleum economy for the good of Nigerians.
That was the ideological battle behind the price battle.
Today, the temperature appears considerably lower. The loud disagreements that once dominated public discourse have largely disappeared, while cooperation and accommodation seem to have replaced confrontation.
The important question for Nigerians is therefore not simply why the disagreement ended, but what economic arrangement emerged after the disagreement ended.
Because there is another side to the story: what did Nigerians gain when they were fighting, and what are Nigerians paying now that they appear to understand each other?
If petrol is now around ₦1,450 per litre, then the difference is not merely a number on a filling-station pump. It represents a significant burden on transportation, food prices, household income, production costs and the wider Nigerian economy.
Nobody should romanticise conflict. A sustainable petroleum sector requires cooperation among refiners, marketers, regulators and government.
But cooperation should ultimately produce efficiency, competition, stability and affordability for the Nigerian consumer.
The real test of the new peace is therefore not whether Dangote, marketers or industry stakeholders are no longer fighting.
The real test is whether Nigerians are better off because they are no longer fighting.
Because if the industry has found peace, Nigerians should not become the price of that peace.
Nasir Abdulquadri
Nastv Africa
Manifesting Africas Greatness
www.nastvafrica.com
