ABUJA, Nigeria – The Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, NMDPRA, has revealed that despite the removal of the petrol subsidy, the estimated pump price of petrol in Nigeria remains lower than that in several of its West African neighbours.
This comes after President Bola Tinubu’s announcement on May 29, 2023, which led to an increase in the price of petrol across the country.
During a State House briefing on Tuesday, April 15, 2025, Farouk Ahmed, the CEO of NMDPRA, stated that petrol is currently sold at an average pump price of N950 per litre in Nigeria.
He compared this to the significantly higher prices in neighboring West African countries, noting that petrol costs N2,156 per litre in Cameroon, N1,875 per litre in Chad, and N1,167 per litre in Niger.
In Ghana and Senegal, petrol is priced at N1,581 and N2,540 per litre, respectively.
Ahmed explained that these prices were converted to the current naira exchange rate for comparison, highlighting the discrepancies in petrol pricing across the region.
“Some of these countries do not have refineries; some of the countries are landlocked, so they get petrol from the coastal countries and transport it up. We can see why it is expensive, and we can see why sometimes there is cross-border trade because of this aberration in pricing,” Ahmed said.
The CEO also addressed the declining petrol consumption in Nigeria, revealing that the country’s average daily petrol consumption has dropped to 49.8 million litres from 66.9 million litres as of May 2023.
This decline, according to Ahmed, reflects a shift in consumption patterns following the removal of the petrol subsidy and the resulting price hikes.
