The Depot and Petroleum Products Marketers Association of Nigeria has again stepped into the glare, demanding what many Nigerians want but few can plainly demand — reasonable, accessible fuel. The association, DAPPMAN, told Channels Television that its members want an open, transparent supply arrangement with the Dangote Petroleum Refinery so depots and filling stations can finally end the queues that have become a national ritual. The ask is simple on its face. The politics and economics beneath that ask are not.
For a man with a refinery the size of a small country, Aliko Dangote sits on extraordinary leverage. His Lekki complex is the single largest refinery on the continent with a nameplate capacity often cited at 650,000 barrels per day. That scale means Dangote can, in principle, flood the domestic market with product and end decades of import dependence. Yet since production began the pattern of access has been uneven, and bulk offtake still looks controlled and selective rather than open.
DAPPMAN’s spokesman, Ikem Ohia, put the marketers’ case plainly on air. They are not petitioners for subsidy. They are not asking for charity. They are asking to be able to buy product at prices that allow them to serve customers without recurring stock-outs.
Their argument is technical and structural. Refineries typically rely on bulk off-takers and depot networks to evacuate product efficiently. For more than 20 years DAPPMAN members have built depots in Lagos, Warri, Port Harcourt and Calabar. They say the refinery should use those existing assets rather than hoard distribution through gantry and selected retail channels.
Dangote’s response has been bruising in tone though precise on the point of price. The refinery has described a DAPPMAN subsidy claim of roughly ₦1.5 trillion as “false and unfounded” and insists that gantry sales are priced strictly on production costs and regulated margins.
The company also signals a firm line on logistics. It will not routinely shoulder marketers’ transport bills, according to statements that stress the refinery will not be the industry’s logistics bank. That stance explains why Dangote has invested in its own distribution fleet — 4,000 CNG powered trucks — a move the company says will shore up supply but which marketers fear may give the refinery undue control of downstream channels.
The stakes are larger than depot politics. This is a seam where market power, infrastructure and public policy meet. Since 2023 Nigeria formally moved away from fuel subsidy as a policy, a shift that reshaped pricing, distribution and the very incentives of market players. In that new landscape refiners must compete on price, logistics and margin.
Dangote’s position, given scale and vertical reach, means it can choose how much to sell at gantry and how much to allocate to independent marketers. When that choice resembles control it produces resentment and, worse, market distortions.
For depot owners the problem is not mere rhetoric. Ohia says bulk deliveries to depots remain the fastest route to saturate retail outlets and meet local demand. He warns that gantry and selective partnerships cannot substitute for continuous bulk evacuation.
Figures from the market point to the practical truth of that claim. Where marketers can secure bulk volumes their retail networks function. Where they cannot, stations sit idle and Nigerians queue. That reality has political consequences in a country where transport, agriculture and small industry still rely on affordable petroleum.
Billionaire voices have broadened the debate. Femi Otedola urged marketers to adapt to changing market structures, even suggesting depot operators should consider more radical options such as taking over legacy refining assets rather than resisting new distribution models.
Others warn that Dangote’s fleet will not in itself eliminate bottlenecks. The president of the Petroleum Products Retail Outlets Owners Association notes 4,000 trucks are insufficient as a sole solution to nationwide logistics and last mile delivery. The tension between market efficiency and market dominance has never been clearer.
A practical test of these competing narratives is already recorded in recent policy moves. The Nigerian government first placed NNPC in an organising role for refinery product distribution and later relaxed exclusive buyer arrangements, signalling that the State sought to avoid the creation of a single private gatekeeper but equally to manage national interest in a fragile transition.
Those interventions will not by themselves resolve questions of access and price. What they do show is that the state remains a player in the negotiation between depot owners and a refinery with extraordinary capacity.
So what would resolve this impasse? DAPPMAN is asking for an open off-take system where eligible depot owners can lift bulk volumes at transparent, reproducible prices. That is a market solution in principle. But markets require rules.
Those rules should include published allocation criteria, agreed pricing formulas that reflect production costs plus fair margins, and a logistics compact that clarifies where responsibility for last mile costs lies. Absent that, the temptation for vertical control or for exclusive partnerships will remain, and Nigerian consumers will pay the price at the pumps.
This is not merely a business quarrel. It is a national infrastructure conversation about who will run the arteries that keep the economy moving. Dangote has delivered refinery capacity that could transform Nigeria. Depot owners have built distribution that can make that promise real on the ground.
If both sides frame their demands as business imperatives they could reach a design that keeps prices stable and ends the queues. If they frame their actions as exercises in market control, the consumer will lose and political pressure will follow.
The public will not care for algebra of margins. They will care for the day they do not spend half a day in a queue. That should be the measure of success.
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