Fuel Subsidy Is Pure 'Accounting Magic', Petrol Should Sell at N501 – Olawepo-Hashim

Accord Party presidential aspirant, Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim, has raised fundamental questions regarding Nigeria’s petroleum pricing architecture, dismissing the long-held fuel subsidy narrative as mere "accounting magic" designed to conceal administrative pricing distortions and inflated production expenses.

Speaking during a televised national political broadcast, Olawepo-Hashim asserted that the soaring pump prices paid by everyday Nigerians are a direct fallout of how the federal government and state-owned energy entities account for locally extracted crude allocations. He argued forcefully that pricing domestically allocated crude oil at international market benchmarks represents an unjustifiable financial burden on an already struggling populace.

According to figures cited from industry records, Nigeria's domestic crude production cost currently averages around $30 per barrel—a figure significantly higher than peer oil producers such as Saudi Arabia, where extraction costs hover around $10 per barrel. Olawepo-Hashim detailed a realistic pricing matrix: adding a $15 commercial margin to the $30 production baseline, along with $5 for refining costs and $7 for transportation, insurance, and logistics, caps the comprehensive production benchmark at approximately $57 per barrel.

At an estimated benchmark exchange rate of N1,400 to the United States dollar, this $57 valuation translates to a base petrol cost of roughly 34 cents, or N501 per litre. Even after factoring in a proposed N100 energy transition tax dedicated to developing alternative power infrastructure, the final retail figure would sit near N605 per litre—substantially below current market rates across petrol stations nationwide.