Nigeria’s failure to rehabilitate and refine its crude may continue to push up fuel price locally, senior lecturer at the Rivers State University, Prof. Ayodele Momodu, has said.
Prof. Momodu who is an econometrist in Economics Department of the university, in an interview with The Tide, said unless there was a deliberate effort to stop fuel imoortation, fuel price hike would persist.
He argued that there was no way a country can deregulate its petroleum sector without experiencing increment in the price of products.
“What we are doing now is to buy the refined  product after selling it. So, it’s like you buying a finished product from a product you are producing. So definitely, the price will be higher.
The economics expert chided the Federal Government for its insincerity in deregulation, describing it as illogical and wasteful.
Prof. Momodu also described fuel subsidy as a scam, saying there was insincerity in the subsidy regime.
“How do you subsidise what you have deregulated?” he querie.
He maintained that the sector needs to be totally overhauled in such a way that there will be local capacity before any meaningfull progress could be made.
He added that local production is key in deregulation of the petroleum market and production.