The debate over petrol pricing is taking a new turn ahead of the 2027 presidential election, with presidential candidate of the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP), Donald Duke, proposing a return to production-based pricing that could bring petrol down to about N300 per litre.

Duke’s proposal comes against the backdrop of President Bola Tinubu’s decision to remove petrol subsidy in 2023, a policy the administration has consistently defended as necessary to reduce fiscal pressure and free resources for other priorities.

The Federal Government said the removal saved N15.8 trillion between June 2023 and December 2025, while Tinubu has maintained that the policy was necessary to avert fiscal collapse.

Unlike a straightforward return to the former subsidy regime, however, Duke is proposing that petrol for domestic consumption should be priced according to the cost of producing it rather than international market benchmarks.

Speaking on Channels Television’s Morning Brief on Wednesday, the former Cross River State governor criticised the existing approach and argued that Nigerians should benefit more directly from the country’s crude oil resources.

“The subsidy regime thing—this whole thing is a scam. I’m going to price petroleum products for local consumption at production costs, not at international market costs,” Duke said.

His position places him within a broader 2027 political argument over whether Nigeria should maintain market-based petrol pricing or use government intervention to reduce the burden of fuel costs on consumers.

Duke argued that the gap between production costs and international pricing was responsible for much of the burden being transferred to Nigerian consumers.

“I’m giving you a production cost of $45, right? The international price—that’s $45, including processing, refining, otherwise, it’s about $30, and you’re selling it back to your own people at 100 and something dollars,” he added.

For Duke, the consequence is not merely an energy-sector issue but a wider cost-of-living problem, particularly for workers whose incomes are being consumed by transportation and fuel expenses.

“You don’t want them to breathe, and your people are notably the poorest in the world. They can’t afford it. The basic minimum wage is 70,000 naira. Your salary will go in just filling a tank of fuel,” he said.

Asked what Nigerians could expect to pay under his proposed policy, Duke put forward a specific target.

“I will try and bring it to about 300 naira. I’ve told you that it sounds so outlandish, but I’ve given you the arithmetic,” he said.

His proposal is broadly aligned with the growing political push for some form of government intervention in petrol pricing, although the three opposition positions are not identical.

Atiku Abubakar, the African Democratic Congress (ADC) presidential candidate, has proposed what he calls a transparent production subsidy for petrol refined in Nigeria. Under his proposal, imported petrol would not qualify, while the intervention would have a fixed spending limit, National Assembly approval and independent audits.

Atiku has also maintained that he would restore subsidy in some form if elected, arguing that Nigerians should benefit from the country’s oil wealth. His proposal has drawn questions from the Tinubu administration and APC about its legal and fiscal basis under the Petroleum Industry Act.

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Peter Obi of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) has also moved towards supporting a form of subsidy intervention, arguing that corruption rather than subsidy itself is the fundamental problem with the previous arrangement. Recent reports indicate that Obi has said he would restore subsidy if elected, provided the corruption associated with the scheme is eliminated.

The contrasting positions mean that the 2027 election is shaping up to offer voters competing approaches to the same fundamental question: whether petrol prices should be determined largely by market forces or whether government should intervene to make domestic fuel more affordable.

Duke’s proposed mechanism is to dedicate part of Nigeria’s crude production to meeting domestic consumption, while selling the remaining output internationally.

“Allocate 600,000 barrels if that’s what you consume daily. Allocate that to yourself. The other one million you can sell it,” he said.

The proposal, in effect, seeks to insulate domestic consumers from international price movements by treating a portion of Nigeria’s crude production as a strategic domestic resource.

The central policy difference between the proposals is therefore not simply whether government support should return, but how that support should be structured, who should benefit from it, how it should be financed and how it would coexist with Nigeria’s petroleum-sector laws and domestic refining capacity.

While Tinubu’s administration has pursued subsidy removal and market-oriented pricing as part of its broader economic reforms, Duke, Atiku and Obi are presenting different forms of intervention as possible alternatives ahead of 2027.

For voters, the emerging debate goes beyond the promised pump price. It raises questions about the sustainability of each proposal, the cost to government, the treatment of domestic refiners, the role of imported petrol and the mechanisms required to prevent the corruption and leakages that have historically surrounded fuel subsidy.

Duke’s N300 target has therefore added a specific price benchmark to an already intensifying 2027 debate, while Atiku and Obi have separately put forward proposals for government intervention in the domestic fuel market.

The competing proposals are likely to keep petrol pricing and subsidy policy at the centre of economic discussions as the 2027 presidential contest gathers momentum.

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