Why Saidu Aliyu Mohammed’s appointment is a defining regulatory trust test for NMDPRA
If downstream regulation loses trust, Nigeria does not merely face higher prices. It faces a deeper hazard: market capture; where influence replaces rules
Nigeria is standing at a fork in the road in its downstream petroleum sector. One path leads to a competitive market; multiple refiners, transparent rules, predictable pricing signals, and lower long-term risk.
The other path looks efficient in the short term but is dangerous in the long run: a market where one dominant player becomes so large that regulation quietly bends around it.
The nomination and swift confirmation of Saidu Aliyu Mohammed, an engineer as CEO of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) arrives at precisely this sensitive moment; after a public dispute between the regulator’s outgoing leadership and Aliko Dangote over market rules, imports, and credibility.
In that environment, the key issue is not competence on paper. It is regulatory independence and the public’s ability to see it.
If downstream regulation loses trust, Nigeria does not merely face higher prices. It faces a deeper hazard: market capture; where influence replaces rules and the “referee” is perceived to be wearing one team’s jersey.
NMDPRA is not an ordinary agency. It is the umpire for licensing, quality standards, pricing frameworks, supply discipline, and competitive fairness. These issues directly shape inflation in Nigeria, transport costs, food prices, and business survival.
In a market where one player has extraordinary scale, capital, and political reach, small regulatory “tilts” become massive economic outcomes.
A slight preference in licensing speed, product rule interpretation, access conditions, compliance enforcement or import policy signals can quietly shift the entire playing field and once the market senses that the biggest actor is “too important to challenge,” competition dies without a formal announcement.
This is how monopolies are born: not always through a single law, but through a thousand small decisions that cumulatively make everyone else unviable.
WHY THIS APPOINTMENT TRIGGERS A REGULATORY-TRUST ALARM
When a leadership change follows immediately after a high-profile clash between a regulator and the most powerful downstream investor, the reputational risk is obvious: Nigerians may reasonably suspect a move from neutral oversight to managed outcomes.
That suspicion becomes more severe if there are any recent advisory, consulting, or commercial ties (real or perceived) between the incoming CEO of NMDPRA and any entity with major interests before the authority.
Even the appearance of closeness matters, because the downstream market runs on confidence. If investors and operators believe the referee is aligned with the dominant team, they stop competing on efficiency and start competing on access. This makes the results predictable: smaller refiners and marketers reduce investment or exit, new entrants pause or cancel projects, innovation slows because outcomes are no longer merit-based, consumers lose choice and pricing power concentrates on one entity.
This evolving model could make Nigeria easily move from a “scarcity crisis” to “single-supplier dependency.”
Nigeria has suffered enough from dependency. It cannot afford to replace foreign dependency with domestic dependency.
become single-threaded, the country loses leverage. At that point, Nigerians will not be negotiating prices in a competitive market; they will be pleading for mercy in a controlled one.
This appointment, therefore, is not merely administrative. It is a referendum on whether Nigeria’s downstream future will be governed by rules or by weight.
The fastest way to de-escalate suspicion is not rhetoric. It is radical transparency, enforceable safeguards, and visible even-handed enforcement.
Nigeria does not need a downstream sector that simply works,Nigeria needs a downstream sector that works without fear, without favor, and without one player becoming the market itself.
Babajide Ogunsanwo, Multiple Award-Winning Data and Information Analyst writes from Lagos, Nigeria
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