President Bola Tinubu’s administration appears to have upped the petrol price from N650 to N855, according to pump price displays on Tuesday on fuel dispensers at the government NNPC stations.

Amid a lingering fuel scarcity and crisis, petrol prices on dispensing machines of government-backed NNPCL stations in Lagos and Abuja on Tuesday showed N855 per litre, cementing claims that the price has been reviewed upward to reflect the nation’s current foreign exchange woes and fuel landing cost hassles.

Other filling stations adjusted their price to N897 per litre on Tuesday morning. 

Femi Soneye, the NNPCL spokesperson, told Peoples Gazette, “I’m not aware. But I’ll find out.”

Fuel prices have dwindled between N580 per litre to N700 per litre since Mr Tinubu became president and announced the removal of fuel subsidies in 2023. 

But in recent weeks, the nation has suffered an acute fuel scarcity that led the few stations with fuel to sell at exorbitant prices above N900 per litre while black market prices exceeded N1,000. 

On Thursday, the Tinubu government issued a statement denying reports that pegged the official fuel increase to N1,000.

“The federal government is compelled to address the outright falsehoods currently being circulated on social media, which claim that the Minister of Petroleum Resources (Oil), Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, has directed the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited to inflate petroleum prices above the approved pump price,” said the statement by Nnemaka Okafor, special adviser, media and communication, to the Minister for Petroleum Resources (Oil), Heineken Lokpobiri.