2027: Duke vows to reduce petrol price to ₦300 per litre if elected president

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.

“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.

How other 2027 candidates differ on subsidy

The fuel-price proposal places Mr Duke among a growing number of 2027 presidential candidates making cheaper petrol a central campaign issue, although their approaches differ.

President Tinubu, who abolished the petrol subsidy after assuming office in May 2023, has rejected calls to restore it. In his recent Independence Day address, he described subsidies as “addictive” and said his administration would not reverse its economic reforms.

Former Vice President and African Democratic Congress presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, has taken the opposite position. He has repeatedly said he would restore petrol subsidy if elected.

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More recently, Atiku proposed a transparent production subsidy for petroleum products refined in Nigeria, with a fixed spending limit, legislative approval and independent audits.

Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress, said the subsidy should be removed but criticised how the proceeds have been managed. He said the savings should have been redirected into productive sectors such as healthcare and other areas that directly benefit citizens.

Accord Party candidate Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim has proposed a starting petrol price of ₦605 per litre, saying it could eventually fall to between ₦200 and ₦300 if production costs and the exchange rate are brought under control. He has argued that the country needs a transparent cost structure rather than an opaque subsidy system.

Social Democratic Party candidate Adewole Adebayo has gone further, promising to reduce petrol, cooking gas and aviation fuel prices to ₦200 per litre within 12 months of taking office, partly through the revival of Nigeria’s refineries and development of modular refineries.

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.