He emphasised that economic resilience depended on building a strong domestic manufacturing base and diversifying exports.
“Productivity or time-to-earn a wage is the metric that reveals the true cost of labour and exposes the fallacy of a single price comparison,” he said.
Oyelaran-Oyeyinka further noted that Nigeria should not be compared with advanced economies.
“An underdeveloped country like us should not be compared with a superpower USA, UK or any other OECD country because of the simple reason that we have not earned that distinction,” he said.
He added that petrol affordability should be assessed relative to income, not just price.
“The price per litre in Nigeria of N1,300… is just one variable in a complex set of development equations,” he said, noting that “citizens of low-income nations earn low income and for the most part at subsistence levels, so petrol to be realistic becomes a luxury item.”
He explained that “the ‘effective cost of petrol’ is relatively higher for a Nigerian worker than for a worker in any industrial nation,” stressing that this held true both in normal times and during economic shocks.
Speaking further on broader structural issues, he said Nigeria remained trapped in a “low-level income equilibrium,” with about 70 per cent of the population in subsistence agriculture and persistent infrastructure challenges, especially power supply.
“To get a true picture you must measure petrol cost in ‘hours of labour.’ With this measure it will manifest among the most expensive in the world because a Nigerian wage earner operates in a low-productivity system,” he said.
He concluded that currency conversion alone created a misleading picture.
“When you do a direct conversion of this Naira to dollars/pound you generate an economic fallacy, it confuses and misleads folks,” he said.
“Done this way, yes, Nigeria’s petrol is relatively not cheap. Food and housing prices are also not cheap. We remain so until we achieve structural transformation of the Nigerian economy.
