Fuel subsidy: Only Tinubu can set the price of gasoline - Falana takes on NNPCL

According to Femi Falana, a human rights lawyer, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) lacks the legal authority to fix or adjust petrol prices.

Falana maintains that President Bola Tinubu has the authority to fix petrol prices because there is no substantive Minister of Petroleum Resources.

NNPCL announced on May 31 that it had adjusted petrol prices across its retail outlets.

NNPCL’s spokesman, Garba Deen Muhammad, cited “market realities” as the reason for the adjustment of the price.

But speaking in an interview with Channels Television on Friday, Falana said it was against the law that NNPCL or the so-called “invisible market forces” were fixing the price of petrol.

“The NNPC has metamorphosed into a limited liability company. It is now NNPC Limited. To that extent, NNPCs like Total, Exxonmobil, and Shell operating in the oil industry cannot announce increases in the prices of petroleum products. That duty is vested in the government.

“Nobody has the right in Nigeria to fix the prices of petroleum products other than the government. You have a price control act and at that time the petroleum act, now PIA,” Falana said.