In a strongly worded opinion piece, Dan D. Kunle has argued that the World Bank’s recommendation for Nigeria to reopen petrol imports is not reform but regression, warning that it would undermine the country’s hard-won industrial gains. The World Bank recently urged Nigeria to reopen petrol imports to moderate inflation, a recommendation Kunle describes as “wrapped in technocratic language” but ultimately a return to the “very trap that weakened its economy for decades”.
Kunle notes that Nigeria’s history with fuel importation is a history of dysfunction, producing chronic scarcity, inflated costs, a corrupt subsidy regime, and persistent foreign exchange crises. Today, however, Nigeria stands at the brink of a different future. The Dangote Petroleum Refinery has already begun reshaping the country’s energy landscape. Since fuel imports were curtailed, the refinery has become the primary source of petrol in Nigeria, significantly increasing domestic supply and expanding exports across Africa. The refinery confirmed producing 50 million litres of PMS in January, and by April, this output was estimated to have increased to around 70 million litres, with higher quality than previously imported products.
The author argues that allowing widespread fuel imports to return would destabilise a sector only now beginning to find its footing. The Dangote Refinery has stabilised domestic petroleum prices at levels significantly below those prevailing in neighbouring, import-dependent African countries. Furthermore, import dependence drains scarce foreign exchange, weakens the naira, and exposes the entire economy to global volatility. The Dangote Refinery has helped stabilise the naira, with the exchange rate strengthening from over N1,600 per US dollar to below N1,400. Reopening fuel imports would exert renewed pressure on the currency, triggering depreciation and leading to cost-push inflation.
Kunle draws a parallel with Nigeria’s experience in cement, where Dangote Cement eliminated Nigeria’s dependence on imported cement by building robust local capacity. He warns that if Nigeria reopens fuel imports now, it will effectively sabotage its opportunity to replicate this success in the petroleum sector. He further notes the irony that the author of the World Bank report is from Ethiopia, a country where the Dangote Group is currently conducting surveys to identify a suitable site for a petroleum products tank farm and pipeline infrastructure to support Ethiopian energy security.
Kunle concludes that the argument that fuel imports will reduce inflation is shallow, presupposing cheaper fuel is available and that the long-term costs of import dependency are justified by short-term relief. Fuel imports not only transmit global shocks directly into the domestic economy but also place permanent pressure on foreign exchange reserves. Even the World Bank’s own report acknowledged that recent price spikes were driven by global tensions, not domestic constraints. Reopening imports would simply import these shocks wholesale.
