Survey Reveals 13% Nigerians Buy Petrol @ N100 Per Litre

Fourth Quarter (Q4) results for the Petrol Price Monitoring Polls conducted by NOIPolls Limited  has revealed that 13% of Nigerians purchased petrol N100, an increment of N3 and probably by petrol stations.

Similarly, the majority of Nigerians (77%) who purchased petrol at the official price of N97 and typically buy petrol from major marketer filling stations (69%), use the product for both their cars and generators (46%).

These form part of the findings of the Petrol Price Monitoring Poll for Quarter 4, 2013 conducted by NOIPolls.

In January 2012, the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatroy Agency (PPPRA) along with government announced an increase in the price of petrol from N65 to N141 as a result of the removal of subsidy because over a trillion naira was spent in 2011 on the payment of subsidies.

After days of protest by Nigerians led by organised labour and civil societies who were unhappy about the perceived hardship this action would cause  Nigerians and the lack of notice by the government to carry out such plans, the government as a stop-gap measure partially removed the subsidy on petrol, thereby bringing the official pump price of petrol to N97.

Subsidy has been defined as money given by the state or public body to keep down cost of commodities. Some people see it as a form of protectionism or trade barrier because domestic goods are made affordable artificially.

Within the Nigerian petroleum pricing context, subsidy would then mean selling petrol below the cost of production or importation.


In the course of and following the 2012 subsidy protest and partial removal of subsidy by government, many debates arose with erroneous and inaccurate information passed across as the truth, indicating a need for a dependable measure of public opinion on issues surrounding public policies.

This led NOIPolls to initiate the Petrol Price Monitoring Poll Project in January 2013. This result release is the fourth quarterly release in the series.

The purpose of the poll, according to the NOIPolls, is to monitor and analyse the current price and uses of petrol in Nigeria, as well as to measure the perception of Nigerians towards the petrol price differences at various points of sale and the removal of fuel subsidy.

Other key findings are that over 6,000 respondents were interviewed from January-December 2013 and respondents were asked the same ten questions for each monthly poll, but only five of these will be reviewed in this report.

With the aim of identifying the main petrol distributors that Nigerians patronize,  respondents to the poll were asked: Where do you mainly buy petrol from? Results reveal that in Q4 the majority (69%) buy petrol from major marketer filling stations.

This is followed by 24% who mainly purchase from independent marketer filling stations and 7% who buy from petrol hawkers.

Analysis of the results by geo-political zones shows that the South-West has the highest percentage of people (78%) purchasing petrol from major marketer filling stations.

The South-East zone has the highest percentage purchasing from independent marketer filling stations with 39%, while the North West and North-East zones have the highest percentage of people purchasing from the hawkers with 16% and 15% respectively.

When Q4 results are compared with Q3, current results show there were no major changes in Q4. There was a slight 1-point decline in the proportion of people that mainly buy from major marketer filling stations and another slight 2% decrease in the proportion that buy from Independents when compared to Q3 results.

Subsequently, In order to estimate the average cost of petrol in Nigeria as well as measure the percentage of Nigerians who buy above the official pump price, the respondents were asked: How much do you normally buy petrol? 

Results show that the 77% of Nigerians purchased petrol at the official price of N97 in Q4. This was followed by 13% who purchased at N100. However, in total, 23% of Nigerians bought petrol above the official price in Q4.

Further analysis by geo-political zones shows that the South-West, North-Central, North East and South-East zones have the highest amount of respondents who bought petrol at N97 with 81% and 80% for the three other zones respectively.

A cumulative look at the prices paid for fuel in the 4th quarter shows that the proportion of respondents that bought at the official price of N97 was highest in November (83%) and this dropped to 75% in December.