Human rights lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, Femi Falana has said the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) has no legal powers to fix the price of petrol.
Falana stated this while speaking in an interview with Channels Television on Friday, monitored by the News Chronicle.
According to Falana, the power to fix the price of petrol lies with President Bola Tinubu, since there is no substantive minister of petroleum resources.
Falana said it was against the law that NNPCL or the so-called “invisible market forces” were fixing the price of petrol.
He said, “The NNPC has metamorphosed into a limited liability company. It is now NNPC Limited. To that extent, NNPCs like Total, Exxonmobil, and Shell operating in the oil industry cannot announce increases in the prices of petroleum products. That duty is vested in the government.
The News Chronicle could recall that, on May 31, NNPCL said it has adjusted the price of petrol across its retail outlets.