Nigeria: Stop Issuing Indiscriminate Fuel Import Licences, Economist Urges NMDPRA

What the report says

The Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise (CPPE) has urged Nigeria’s Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) to avoid issuing fuel import licences broadly and instead approve them only when there is a clearly verified domestic supply shortfall. The call was made in a policy brief released in Abuja and attributed to CPPE Director/CEO Muda Yusuf, according to Leadership as distributed by AllAfrica.

The group said petroleum-product imports should remain a temporary gap-filling tool rather than a parallel market that could weaken domestic refining. It argued that licence approvals should be based on published, independently checked supply-and-demand data. CPPE cited recent NMDPRA figures showing a rise in petrol imports in mid-2026, alongside what it described as stronger domestic refining activity, including high reported utilisation at local refineries and testing at the Dangote Refinery.

CPPE said the Petroleum Industry Act allows imports in the context of a domestic supply gap and proposed tighter controls, including monthly supply-balance reports, formal gap determinations, and limited, quantified permits. It also recommended equal treatment for imported and local products on quality and tax rules, as well as stronger coordination among NMDPRA, the upstream regulator and the competition watchdog.

The broader policy issue is Nigeria’s effort to balance fuel availability with support for domestic refining, foreign-exchange conservation and investment in the downstream sector. The article frames the debate as one over how to prevent imports from undermining local production while still covering genuine shortages.