The Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria has threatened a nationwide shutdown of filling stations if the Federal Government attempts to enforce price controls in the deregulated downstream sector.
The development follows a warning from the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Oil), Heineken Lokpobiri, who spoke in Abuja at the 2026 General Counsel and Legal Advisers Forum organized by the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority.
At the event on Monday, Lokpobiri declared that while the era of government-fixed prices is over, deregulation does not mean regulators should abdicate their responsibility to protect consumers from profiteering and exploitation.
Questions have been raised over why retail petrol prices, currently between ₦1,140 and ₦1,210 per litre, have remained largely unchanged despite global crude oil prices falling sharply from about $120 per barrel during the US-Iran conflict to around $72.
Lokpobiri insisted that the Petroleum Industry Act specifically empowers government institutions to
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