Abuja, March 12, 2026 – Wale Edun, the Minister of Finance says the federal government will not regulate current high petrol prices caused by the Middle East crisis.
He said rather the federal government is introducing some palliatives to cushion the effects of the higher petrol prices on Nigerians.
The minister said this on Wednesday while speaking on “Politics Today”, a programme of Channels Television.
He said the president had ordered the provision of 100,000 additional compressed natural gas (CNG) conversion kits to enable vehicles switch to CNG fuel which costs about 25 to 30 percent of the price of petrol.
Edun said similar initiatives were being worked ou to cushion the effects of the higher petrol prices.
He said the federal government would not regulate petrol prices as this might cause other economic problems.
“When there is market failure is where the regulator steps in. But in terms of balancing pricing, what we are looking to do is to manage the disruption and we don’t know how permanent or temporary it could be,” Edun said.
“But in the meantime, rather than reverting back and taking backward steps, we’ll look at every other measure that we have that can help the cost of living of Nigerians,” he said.
The minister said the economic reforms of the administration were already stabilizing the economy with inflation declining and growth gradually improving.
He said the key reforms of government had helped restore stability and improve macroeconomic indicators.
“The key to having removed major distortions, which President Tinubu has courageously done, is that we now have market pricing of foreign exchange and market pricing of petroleum products.
“That has helped stabilise the economy, brought down inflation, and built up reserves,” he said.
