NLC Rejects Fresh Petrol Price Hike, Demands More Crude for Dangote Refinery

LAGOS — The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has condemned the latest increase in petrol prices as “avoidable and unacceptable,” questioning why the Federal Government has failed to ensure the Dangote Petroleum Refinery receives sufficient Nigerian crude oil even as global oil prices decline.

The NLC is not a party to any legal dispute over the pricing decision; its intervention is a labour advocacy statement directed at the Federal Government and, indirectly, at the pricing practices of the Dangote refinery and fuel marketers.

A third hike in just over a week

Findings by ValidViewNetwork show the Dangote Petroleum Refinery raised its petrol gantry price by N65 per litre this week, from N1,200 to N1,265, marking its third consecutive increase in eight days and an overall jump of N100 in that short span.

Marketers have since passed the added logistics costs on to consumers, pushing pump prices to as high as N1,310 in parts of Lagos and Ogun states, and up to N1,400 per litre in some northern states.

What the NLC is saying

According to NLC Acting General Secretary Benson Upah, the price adjustment will deepen hardship for workers and low-income households already struggling with the broader cost of living.

“This adds to the increasing difficulties of the average Nigerian for whom life has been Hobbesian,” Upah said, arguing the increase is difficult to justify given both falling international crude prices and Nigeria’s expanding domestic refining capacity.

The crude supply numbers behind the complaint

Checks by ValidViewNetwork show the NLC’s frustration is rooted in a specific supply gap: producers reportedly offered 68.1 million barrels of crude to the Dangote refinery in the second quarter of 2026, against the refinery’s stated requirement of 63 million barrels, yet the refinery is said to have accepted only 52.6 million barrels of what was offered.

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The union argues this gap raises pointed questions about why Nigeria, a major crude-producing nation with a refinery capable of processing about 650,000 barrels daily, continues to face upward pressure on pump prices at all.

A dispute with more than one villain

Findings by ValidViewNetwork show the underlying supply picture is genuinely contested: Dangote Group has separately disputed the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited’s (NNPCL) claims of full compliance with the naira-for-crude programme, arguing the state oil company delivered far fewer cargoes than the framework required.

That unresolved disagreement over whose responsibility the shortfall actually is leaves the NLC’s core question, why Nigerian crude isn’t reliably reaching Nigeria’s own refinery, still without a clear answer from either side.

What Nigerians are left facing

With Nigeria’s crude production reportedly improving overall even as refinery supply remains erratic, ordinary consumers are the ones absorbing the resulting price swings at the pump.

Whether the Federal Government intervenes to resolve the supply dispute between NNPCL and Dangote, as the NLC is demanding, or leaves the two parties to continue trading blame while prices climb, will likely shape how much further pump prices rise before the year is out.

Our conclusion: A refinery built on the promise of shielding Nigerians from imported fuel volatility should not be raising prices three times in eight days while crude sits unclaimed on offer.

Until NNPCL and Dangote stop trading blame long enough to agree on a single, transparent number for what’s actually being delivered, ordinary Nigerians will keep paying the price of a dispute that has nothing to do with them.