Yesterday, I went to buy petrol from the filling station and I saw that the price had come down significantly, by at least N100. As of last year, it was N900+ but now it’s around N800+. I know that it might not seem like a lot, but for someone like me who buys fuel regularly due to the epileptic power supply in my area, it increases the amount of fuel I go home with in one purchase and that also increases how long I get to use it.
This is good, after all, if there is something we’re all looking for it’s the reduction in the price of goods and services. I know that if the price of fuel can come down even further, transport will come even lower and that will affect the price of goods and services as well. It’s like one giant house of cards in which after one drop, everything else follows in a systematic fashion.
Honestly, I don’t really know what is happening. Normally, petrol shouldn’t even be that expensive considering the fact that we have crude oil in our country as a natural resource and since last year we have functioning refineries. Yet, since the refineries started operating, the prices have all gone up. The people we thought would help us and try to make these things easier on us end up doing it only to make more money.
But then, as luck would have it, even they don’t seem to be on the same page because sometimes it seems that our marketers would rather import refined crude oil than buy from the refineries here. And also, the refineries here are making it so damn expensive. Like, what’s the point of having a refinery in your country if you’ll still be paying the same price as the imported fuel? It just doesn’t make any sense to me.
But then, it's not like our leaders are known to give explanations to these things. They simply do what they want and expect us to go along with it because… well, I don’t know. But then, my people also don’t have a habit of demanding answers from those we placed in positions of power. Instead, we choose to adapt, no matter how bad things get. We only get better at adapting.
Now that the price of fuel is coming down, I can’t help but wonder how long it’s gonna last. This morning, I went to the gas depot and found that Ikg was N1000. Last month, I bought it for N1300. So, this is not just a petrol thing, it’s all round petroleum product.
What does this mean for we the consumers? Are marketers and refineries at loggerheads again? Is competition the reason for this reduction in price? Will this price go down further? Or are we going to see another surge within a week? Honestly, I have no idea what is to come.
Usually, statistics and market trends are meant to determine things like these, but we’ve seen that here in my country, these things are decided by the wallets of greed. So, it can go any way at all. It can get better or it can get worse. I guess only time will tell.
