The presidential candidate of the Allied Peoples Movement (APM) and Governor of Oyo State, Engr. Seyi Makinde, has ruled out a return to Nigeria’s former petrol subsidy regime, instead proposing a new pricing framework designed to deliver cheaper fuel to Nigerians through domestic refining.
Makinde disclosed this on Monday at the inauguration of the APM presidential campaign office in Abuja, where he outlined what he described as a more transparent and efficient approach to ensuring that Nigeria’s oil resources translate into measurable benefits for its citizens.
According to him, the policy would prioritise domestic refineries by supplying them with crude oil at a preferential price, thereby allowing the benefits of Nigeria’s natural resources to reach consumers without recreating the inefficiencies associated with the former subsidy system.
Makinde argued that rather than injecting opaque government interventions into pump prices after production and distribution costs have accumulated, the benefit should be incorporated into the system from the outset through the price of crude supplied to local refiners.
“Some people have asked whether I’m suggesting that we bring back the old fuel subsidy. That is not my position,” Makinde said.
He maintained that Nigeria’s oil resources must provide “a real and measurable benefit to Nigerians,” stressing that such benefits should be deliberately built into the domestic refining value chain.
The proposal, he said, would reduce distortions and cost inefficiencies while strengthening local refining and ensuring that Nigerians derive greater value from the country’s petroleum resources.
Makinde’s position places domestic refining and preferential crude pricing—not petrol pump subsidies—at the centre of his proposed 2027 petroleum-sector strategy.
