Former Cross River State governor and Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) presidential candidate, Donald Duke, has promised to reduce the price of petrol to about ₦300 per litre if elected president in 2027.
Mr Duke said he would not achieve the price reduction by returning to the opaque subsidy regime of the past, but by changing how petroleum products for domestic consumption are priced.
He said Nigeria should price petrol based on the actual cost of producing and refining its crude rather than subjecting domestic consumers to international market prices.
The former governor made the remarks on Wednesday during an interview on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief, where he criticised President Bola Tinubu’s economic policies and outlined his own approach to the petroleum sector.
‘Subsidy Regime Is A Scam’
Mr Duke dismissed the traditional subsidy arrangement as unsustainable.
He argued that Nigeria, as an oil-producing country, should use part of its crude production to meet domestic energy needs at a lower cost.
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👉 JOIN GISTSMATE WHATSAPP CHANNEL“The subsidy regime thing, this whole scam, I’m going to price petroleum products for local consumption at production cost, not at the international market because that’s so far rigid,” he said.
He said the cost of producing and refining crude for domestic consumption was substantially lower than the international benchmark used to determine the price Nigerians pay.
“I’m giving you a production cost of $45, right? The international price. That’s $45, including processing and refining; otherwise, it is about $30, and it’s sold back to your own people at $100 and more,” he said.
Mr Duke said the present pricing structure was particularly burdensome for low-income Nigerians, whose earnings are increasingly consumed by transportation and energy costs.
“You don’t want them to breathe, and your people are known to be the poorest in the world; they can’t afford it,” he said.
“The basic minimum wage is N70,000; will your salary go in just filling a tank of fuel or some fuel? So, we have got to look at it.”
How Duke says ₦300 petrol would work
Asked how much Nigerians should expect to pay for petrol under his administration, Mr Duke said his target would be about N300 per litre.
“I will try and bring it to about N300. It sounds so outlandish, but I have given you the arithmetic,” he said.
He proposed setting aside a portion of Nigeria’s crude oil production specifically for domestic consumption, while exporting the remainder.
“Allocate 600,000 barrels; if that is what is consumed daily, allocate that to yourself; the other one million you can sell,” he said.
His proposal seeks to insulate the domestic market from the full impact of international crude oil prices by treating some of Nigeria’s crude as a strategic domestic resource rather than pricing it entirely against its export value.
Mr Duke also said he would not inherit Mr Tinubu’s economic policies if elected, insisting that his priority would be productivity.
“I won’t inherit his policies; you know, for me, productivity is everything, as I said, within a safe and orderly environment,” he said.
Duke Links Insecurity To Economic Hardship
The PRP candidate also connected Nigeria’s worsening insecurity to economic pressures, arguing that the country’s population had grown substantially. At the same time, the real value of government spending had failed to keep pace.
“What you are seeing is the symptoms of a collapsed economy,” he said, adding that economic pressure was contributing to banditry, kidnapping and other crimes.
Mr Duke said Nigeria’s economic challenge could not be addressed merely by increasing nominal budget figures without improving their purchasing power and the economy’s productive capacity.
He called for a debate among the presidential candidates ahead of the 2027 election, saying Nigerians should be able to compare the candidates’ economic ideas directly.
“I desire to get the conversation driven to where, in particular, it is instrumental to our thinking. I would like us to have a debate, for instance, a very robust debate, and I’m going to be calling for this where all the candidates speak,” he said.
The competing proposals have brought the subsidy debate back to the centre of the 2027 presidential contest, with candidates divided between restoring some form of government intervention, maintaining subsidy removal while reducing production costs, or retaining the existing market-based framework.
Mr Duke’s central argument is that Nigerians should not have to pay an international-market price for a resource produced in their own country.
The feasibility of the proposal, including the actual cost of producing and refining the crude, the volume available for domestic consumption, and the fiscal implications of selling part of Nigeria’s crude below export-market value, is likely to become a major issue as the 2027 campaign progresses.
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