Economy
FG Must Scrap Petroleum Equalisation Fund—Oyegbami
By Modupe Gbadeyanka
Author of ‘Reversing the Rot in Nigeria,’ Mr Olusegun Oyegbami, has condemned Federal Government for shielding the fraud behind the Petroleum Equalisation Fund (PEF), saying the PEF policy should be stopped.
Mr Oyegbami, who has spent more than four decades in the Nigeria petroleum downstream sector, described former President Olusegun Obasanjo and President Muhammadu Buhari as the co-founder of Nigeria’s woes.
“The Petroleum Equalisation Fund (PEF) was put in place in early 1976 when former President Olusegun Obasanjo was Head of State and current President Muhammadu Buhari was the Petroleum Minister, and the intention might have been honest to let everybody have equal access to the petroleum product but equal access should not have been the mantra we should follow but equitable access.
“That is to say if you are in a particular place where you are close to the petrol, then you can buy it slightly cheaper but it should be available to everybody in that location at same price,” the author said.
Mr Oyegbami expressed further that the whole idea in economics is that Nigeria government operates on a comparative advantage and localization of citizens’ advantage.
“When you are in a place like Warri or Port Harcourt and when we are talking about importation, Lagos where the petrol lands should necessarily be cheaper than other places where they come to pick that petrol but where government is now paying to transport petrol to far places that is where the fraud comes into it, which make us to be running a non-economic platform, it is very wrong. Until we change this, Nigeria can never make any progress.
“Because it is looking like government is favouring those people transporting the petrol to their places at government expense, this should not happen and this is what has been happening for more than 40 to 42 years and until we change that, we cannot get it right as a country. I am very convinced about this, you run an economy on an economic template and not as a social platform,” he said.
Discussing fuel subsidy, Mr Oyegbami said the government has never subsidized fuel for its citizens for one day.
“The price at which petrol has been coming in has always been the economic price and up until the PEF scam came in, the money being collected started to be more than what has been voted out of the purse of fixing the price.
“It is like when you increase the price from N1 to N1.50k maybe before they use to allocate 5k out of that N1 for transportation but when it is now N1.50k they will add another 5k to transportation cost so that they will now have more money to pay for transportation and 10k will now be used for transportation.
“So, they have not subsidized the price of petrol as at that time, all they have subsidized is transportation of the product to distant locations. So, it was when, often time when the price began to sky rocket to N100 they now decided that because we are bringing it in at N80 we are going to be giving you additional money, but all the extras are being added to cost of transportation.
“Constantly, the cost of transportation that is the bridging element in the price builds up, that is what always goes up steadily.
“I am telling you that out of N145 as the cost of petrol today, N6.20K is still allocated for transportation.
“Why? It means that anybody using fuel down south is still paying N6.20k more than he should have paid. This is now gathered together to transport petrol to other parts of the country, especially the North.
“It is really an economic matter that the south should not continuously right from over 42 years ago be paying for transporting fuel to the North, because come to think of it whatever is coming from the North always has its own element of transportation that the South pays for. We have never eaten beef, cow, yam at the same price as the north.
“It is purely an economic matter, it is when you are looking at it from political angle that you will say this man is trying to incite one tribe against the other, No, it is purely economics. These are elements of deception that we have been having in this country. Sometime in the second republic, some people were arrested for ‘smuggling’ beans from Bida to Oyo. That is funny.
“Nigeria government should let the Nigerians trade fairly among themselves, if we are going to trade in petrol take the petrol at the available price at the depots, add your own transport cost and sell it there, we will have normalcy in this economy within a year or two but now we still have deception and manipulation going on even right now because anybody who is buying petrol in Lagos is still paying N6.20k for carrying it to the north, it is wrong. That should stop.
“It is when this manipulation stops then we know this government of Buhari is ready to fight corruption, because the same Buhari started the PEF far back then and he’s still protecting it till today, until we stop that before we know he is actually dealing with corruption honestly and he’s treating all Nigerians fairly across board. But for now, No, that is not happening,”
When asked about the inspiration behind written the book, Mr Oyegbami said the death of his mother, more than anything else, epitomizes the transience of existence because it is the departure of spaceship into the horizon.
“You feel lost and marooned leading to a compulsion and resolve to improve things in your society because the inevitability of my own imminent departure is more palpable”.
He said the feeling gave him rise to the writing of ‘Reversing The Rot In Nigeria’ a critical exposé on the nation’s Cul-de-sac.
By Adedapo Adesanya
The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) is seeking a reduction in import duty exemptions, which rose to N34 trillion, limiting its ability to increase its revenue generation threshold.
The Comptroller-General of the Customs Service, Mr Adewale Adeniyi, disclosed that the value of import duty exemption certificate approvals increased to that level in 2025, describing the policy as one of the major factors restricting its revenue generation.
At an investigative session of the Senate Committee on Finance with revenue-generating agencies in Abuja on Monday, Mr Adeniyi explained that government fiscal policies have continued to impact the revenue-generating capacity of the Customs Service, both positively and negatively.
“The NCS would have generated significantly higher revenue over the years if not for government-approved import duty waivers and other external factors affecting collections,” he said.
He added that the Import Duty Exemption Certificate scheme, introduced in March 2020, accounted for about N34 trillion in approvals in 2025, with nearly 60 per cent covering duty-free importation of military hardware due to Nigeria’s prevailing security challenges.
Other government-backed duty waivers, he noted, covered the importation of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG), electric and hybrid vehicles, healthcare equipment and medical supplies, industrial machinery and manufacturing inputs, as well as food import intervention programmes.
While acknowledging the impact of the waivers on Customs revenue, Mr Adeniyi argued that fiscal policy should not be assessed solely on the basis of revenue generation but also on its broader economic and social objectives.
He, however, urged the federal government to establish stronger monitoring mechanisms to ensure beneficiaries of duty waivers deliver the intended economic outcomes, including lower consumer prices, increased local production and improved healthcare access.
The committee also expressed displeasure over the absence of several heads of government agencies invited to the hearing, including the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), Industrial Training Fund (ITF), and the Federal Medical Centre (FMC), Jabi.
The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance, Mr Sani Musa, warned that the affected chief executives must appear at the committee’s next sitting or face severe sanctions under the Senate’s rules.
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By Adedapo Adesanya
The NASD Over-the-Counter (OTC) Securities Exchange rose by 0.40 per cent on Monday, July 13, buoyed by buying interest in 11 Plc, Central Securities Clearing System (CSCS) Plc and UBN Property Plc, which offset the profit-taking in Food Concepts Plc, the parent company of Chicken Republic.
11 Plc gained N20.69 to end at N227.64 per share compared with last Friday’s price of N206.95 per share, CSCS Plc grew by N1.83 to N91.48 per unit from N89.65 per unit, and UBN Property Plc added 1 Kobo to sell at N1.81 per share versus N1.80 per share.
On the flip side, Food Concepts Plc depreciated by 24 Kobo to close at N2.45 per unit, in contrast to the preceding session’s N2.69 per unit.
As a result, the market capitalisation increased by N9.2 billion to N2.587 trillion from N2.578 trillion, and the NASD Security Index (NSI) improved by 15.33 points to 4,311.67 points from 4,296.34 points.
Yesterday, the volume of securities traded by investors surged by 615.9 per cent to 9.1 million units from the previous 1.3 million units, and the value of securities rose by 997.1 per cent to N320.4 million from the preceding session’s N29.2 million, while the number of deals decreased by 12.5 per cent to 28 deals from last Friday’s 32 deals.
At the close of trades, Great Nigeria Insurance (GNI) Plc remained the most active stock by value on a year-to-date basis, with 3.4 billion units valued at N8.4 billion, followed by Infrastructure Credit Guarantee (Infracredit) Plc with 2.3 billion units worth N6.5 billion, and CSCS Plc with 73.9 million units exchanged for N5.2 billion.
GNI Plc also closed the session as the most traded stock by volume on a year-to-date basis, with 3.4 billion units sold for N8.4 billion, followed by Infracredit Plc with 2.3 billion units traded for N6.5 billion, and Resourcery Plc with 1.1 billion units transacted for N415.7 million.
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