Nigerians Disagree with Deregulation of the downstream Oil Sector

A snap poll conducted by NOI Polls revealed that although majority (58%) of Nigerians are aware of the Federal Government’s intention to deregulate the downstream oil sector, 85% of those who are aware of the intended policy change, are of the opinion that the deregulation will only worsen the incessant problems which the sector has faced, as well as the hardship it has brought on the citizenry.

According to the Federal Government, the core components of the deregulation policy involve the removal of government subsidies and allowing the private sector to compete in the refinery of crude oil and production of petroleum products. Such competition, would in turn, allow market forces to determine the price of petroleum products. Nonetheless, 30% said Nigerians would benefit from the policy change while 26% said they were not aware about government’s move to deregulate the sector.

These results are based on telephone interviews with 527 randomly selected phone–owning Nigerians, aged 16 years and above, across the six geo-political zones of the country. Based on this sample size, we can say with 95% confidence that the results have a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points of what they would have been if the entire population had been surveyed. The poll was conducted in March 2009.