The Credibility Group, an advocacy organisation, has frowned at the Nigeria National Petroleum (NNPC) Limited over its fuel price list for the South East geopolitical zone, which it said is unjustifiable high.
The NNPC had recently released a price list for petroleum products in different geopolitical zones of the country, with South East being one of the zones to pay more for the products.
Reacting to the development in a statement on Wednesday by Chief Goddy Uwazurike, its president, the Credibility Group argued that equating the South East with the core northern states flies on the face logic, given the zone’s proximity to the South South, and the fact that it’s also an oil producing area.
“The Credibility Group unreservedly condemns the NNPC Ltd fuel price list for the South East that was released yesterday. The price list equated the cost of fuel to the users in the South East with the North West parts of Nigeria,” the statement said.
“It is a well known fact that the fuel consumed in the South East and South South is transported from Port Harcourt and Warri Deports. But while a buyer in the South South pays N179 per litre, such person will pay N184 the moment he crosses the Niger or Imo River Bridges.
“What is mind-boggling is that the two zones are intertwined, so much so that the Port Harcourt-Owerri Road really has no demarcation.”
Uwazurike wondered how anyone could rationalize the idea of fuel being cheaper in the North Central than the Southeast.
“Now it gets very weird, if not a voodoo economics that fuel is cheaper in the North Central zone than in the oil producing South East,” he said.
“Credibility demands the reversal of this joindiced economic strangulation mind will equate the cost of delivery of fuel to the South East.”
