Deregulation in its base interpretation connotes a non-interference policy of government in the interplay of market forces, come rain come shine. Yet, the economic vagaries impacting supply of petrol are unstable, pointing to the inevitability of price fluctuation particularly upward, as the naira value dips against the dollar, which is the currency used in importing fuel. Sadly, the country is import-dependent on petrol.
All the Special Adviser to the President told State House Correspondents was that the government was convinced based on information available to it that it can maintain the current price without reversing the deregulation policy. That it would do that by cleaning up inefficiencies in the mid and downstream segments of the petroleum sector. That is an admission that there were inefficiencies that needed to have been taken care of before subsidy was removed.
What the government did amounts to a panic reaction to avert social unrest in the event of another unguarded price hike. Government feared that allowing deregulation at the break-neck speed it had been let loose could result in harm to society and government itself.