Dangote said, “We’re trying to bring down the price and make it cheaper. If the distributors are not trying to bring it down, we’ll go directly and sell to the consumers.”
President of Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, has announced plans to reduce the price of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) and threatened to bypass distributors by selling directly to consumers.
Speaking during a tour of the Dangote refinery in Lekki, Lagos, Dangote said, “We’re trying to bring down the price and make it cheaper. If the distributors are not trying to bring it down, we’ll go directly and sell to the consumers.”
He argued that high cooking gas costs force many Nigerians to rely on firewood.
However, operators in the LPG sector expressed alarm, describing the move as monopolistic.
Former Chairman of the LPG and Natural Gas Downstream Group of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Godwin Okoduwa, warned, “I think it’s monopolistic. Growth cannot be achieved through monopoly but through collaboration.”
Similarly, Bassey Essien of the Nigerian Association of LPG Marketers questioned the feasibility of Dangote’s plan, stating, “It’s unrealistic… Has the refinery been able to sell petrol directly to you and me into our cars at a very cheap rate?”
The current retail price of LPG hovers between N1,000 and N1,300 per kilogram.