Contending Issues in the Niger Delta Crisis of Nigeria - Journal of ...

Olawale Olaopa, Ibikunle Ogundari, Mike Awoleye, and Willie Siyanbola
Deregulation of the downstream energy sector, even up till now,
remains a stated government aim which it is pursuing with vigour
even at the risk of allowing local petrol prices to rise to international
levels. Many Nigerians, however, regard oil as a gift from God and
their natural right to enjoy on its being the cheap, a position the
government has dismissed as unrealistic and is forging ahead to
implement despite the public outcry (Oduniyi, 2000).
In November 1999, Obasanjo announced that the market for
petroleum prices would be deregulated and that this would offer the
country debt relief. According to him, all petroleum prices would be
fully deregulated and domestic crude allocation to the NNPC would be
paid for at export parity with immediate effect. Its implementation led
to an immediate effect on pump prices. Since then, the Nigerian
people led by the National Labour Congress waged a running battle
with government for reconsideration but to no avail.
There is an impressive objective and level of privatization and
deregulation activities across Africa and Nigeria in particular, as well
as compelling evidence from other developed and developing countries
that privatization is viable and capable of injecting dynamism into
previously dirigisme economies (Jerome, 1999). However, empirical
evidence indicates that the anticipated benefits of the programme are
yet to be felt in Nigeria, most especially in the oil industry. Most
surveys revealed that privatization and deregulation programmes are
narrow in scope, subject to policy reversals and extremely limited in
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