NewsOnline Nigeriareports that the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has called on President Bola Tinubu to extend the naira-for-crude deal between the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) and local refineries, including the Dangote Refinery.
The group warned that allowing the agreement to expire could trigger a surge in fuel prices, worsening economic hardship for millions of Nigerians.
In a statement on Monday, HURIWA’s National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, urged Tinubu to instruct his economic team to renegotiate and sustain the deal to ease financial pressure on struggling households and businesses.
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“In the spirit of the Sallah celebrations and given the public shows of supplications to God by the President and other public office holders as part of the end of the fasting and Lent period, we are praying President Tinubu to direct his Coordinating Minister for the Economy and the Minister of Finance to transparently and rapidly reach agreement to continue the naira-to-crude deal with local crude oil refineries, including the Dangote Petroleum refinery.
“We make this public supplication and appeal because any alteration to this deal would mean excruciating hardships and the massive affliction of poverty on millions of the already suffering, struggling, and multidimensionally poor households,” the statement read.
The naira-for-crude arrangement, introduced in October 2024 and set to expire on March 31, 2025, enabled local refineries to receive crude oil from NNPCL while making payments in naira. With its expiration, oil marketers have warned that petrol pump prices may rise significantly if the deal is not renewed.
Onwubiko cautioned that higher fuel costs could force many small businesses—especially those dependent on petrol-powered generators—to shut down, leading to job losses and worsening poverty levels.
“HURIWA told President Bola Ahmed Tinubu that our assessment of the public perception of the failure to keep the implementation of the naira-to-crude deal showed that more and many more Nigerians would be thrown out of work given that the operational costs of running small and medium-scale businesses that depend on privately generated electricity power supply, which come basically from petrol-powered generators, means immediate closure of hundreds of thousands of businesses and eventual dismissal of thousands of private sector workers.
“HURIWA argued basically that the most affected segment of the society are the over 133 million multidimensionally poor households going by even the old 2018 statistical data released by the National Bureau of Statistics,” the statement added.
Citing reports from the World Bank and the National Bureau of Statistics, HURIWA noted that over 133 million Nigerians are already classified as multi-dimensionally poor, with the rising cost of living making their situation even more dire.
The group urged the Tinubu administration to act swiftly, warning that failure to address the economic realities could push millions into deeper financial hardship.