Nigeria is spending billions of naira to import cooking gas while sitting on vast reserves of the stuff. This is the specific fact at the heart of the current price crisis that has pushed liquefied petroleum gas to levels that make it a luxury item for millions of Nigerians. And it represents a policy failure so stark that it demands naming.
The numbers tell the story clearly. Nigeria's LPG imports have ballooned even as domestic production capacity sits underutilised. A country that should be a net exporter of cooking gas is instead rationing its own people's access to it through the mechanism of price. When a mother in Lagos calculates whether she can afford to cook a hot meal, she is calculating the result of deliberate policy choices made in Abuja. Not market forces. Policy.
The standard argument from government defenders goes like this: global energy prices are high, the naira is weak, and so gas costs more. These things are true. But they are not the whole truth. They are the excuse that allows policymakers to avoid responsibility for the real problem, which is that Nigeria has failed to develop its domestic gas processing infrastructure. We have the gas. We have not built the facilities to liquefy and distribute it at scale. That is not a market force. That is a choice.
Compare this to Algeria, which despite similar constraints has maintained better domestic gas availability. Or Indonesia, which has deliberately prioritised domestic supply over export revenue. These countries made different choices about what matters more: exporting gas for hard currency or keeping their own people warm and fed. Nigeria chose the currency. Now Nigerians are cold and hungry, and the government calls it economics.
The real scandal is that this was predictable. Anyone paying attention knew that LPG import dependency made Nigeria vulnerable to exactly this kind of shock. When oil prices fell years ago, did we use that period to invest in domestic gas infrastructure? No. We waited. We hoped prices would stay high forever. They did not. Now we are paying the price, and so are ordinary Nigerians.
Some will say that building gas infrastructure takes time and money that Nigeria does not have. This is the only honest part of the conversation. It is true. A refinery costs billions. A gas processing plant costs billions. Building the pipeline network costs billions more. The question then becomes: what is the government's actual budget priority? Because you cannot spend money you do not have on everything, and so choices matter. If subsidising fuel for cars matters more than cooking fuel for families, then say that. If servicing debt matters more than domestic gas production, then say that. But do not pretend that high cooking gas prices are simply what the market demands. They are what Nigerian policy has delivered.
There is also a distributional question that matters. Cooking gas prices affect the poor far more than the rich. A wealthy family spends the same amount on gas whether it costs N500 or N1,500 per kilogram. The poor family stops cooking with gas and switches to firewood, or charcoal, or nothing. This is not an accident of market dynamics. It is the consequence of a government that has chosen to manage inflation by raising prices on essential goods rather than managing the underlying supply problem. It is a tax on poverty dressed up as economics.
The counterargument worth taking seriously is that Nigeria simply does not have the capital to build out the gas infrastructure quickly enough to matter. The naira is too weak, borrowing costs are too high, and the budget is already overextended. If this is true, then the government should say so plainly and explain the trade-offs to Nigerians. Instead, it pretends helplessness and calls the problem global. At least helplessness is honest. Pretence is insulting.
What should happen now is straightforward. First, the government should commission an immediate audit of why domestic gas processing capacity remains so far below potential. Not a general inquiry into energy policy, but a specific examination of which projects have stalled, who delayed them, and why. Second, it should identify which single gas processing facility could be built or completed fastest, and make that a budget priority for the next fiscal year, even if it means cutting something else. Third, it should stop pretending this is a market problem and start talking about it as a policy failure.
If nothing changes, Nigerians will continue to pay the price in cold meals and restricted diets. Gas costs will remain a blunt instrument for managing inflation, hitting the poor hardest. The irony will persist: a gas-rich country where poor families cannot afford to cook. This is not inevitable. It is chosen.
OduViews represents the editorial opinion of OduNews.
