Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Oil), Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, has compared petrol prices across several countries, saying Nigeria’s average pump price remains lower than figures in Cameroon, Ghana and South Africa.
In a report by Punch on Wednesday, 23rd September, 2026, Lokpobiri gave the figures during an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today while discussing deregulation and petrol prices in Nigeria.
“If you go to Cameroon, it’s N1,959. If you go to Ghana, it’s N2,070. If you go to South Africa, it’s N2,070,” Lokpobiri said, adding that Nigeria’s average price was about N1,430 per litre.
The minister also placed the average petrol price in the United States at about N1,633 per litre as he compared Nigeria with countries inside and outside Africa.
According to the figures presented by Lokpobiri, the Nigerian average was more than N500 lower than the figure he quoted for Cameroon and about N640 below the figures he gave for Ghana and South Africa.
He used the comparison to defend the Federal Government’s deregulation policy amid public concerns about the amount Nigerians now spend on petrol.
Lokpobiri argued that the presence of crude oil reserves or domestic refining capacity did not by itself determine the final price consumers paid for petroleum products.
He pointed to the United States as an example, saying the country had major oil production and refining capacity but still recorded a higher average petrol price than Nigeria based on the figures he cited.
The minister said deregulation was designed to allow private businesses to participate more freely in the downstream petroleum market instead of government continuing to import and sell petrol below market prices.
Lokpobiri therefore maintained that although Nigerians were dealing with high energy costs, the figures he presented showed that petrol remained cheaper on average in Nigeria than in several countries used in his comparison.
SOURCE: Native_news