Nollywood actor Wale Okunnu condemns fuel marketers over petrol price hike

By Folashade Olorunfemi –

Nollywood actor Wale Akorede, popularly known as Okunnu, has condemned petroleum marketers over the recent hike in petrol pump prices.

The actor took to his Instagram page on Sunday to decry the increase in petrol prices through a video shared online. He alleged that citizens are partly responsible for their own misfortune, rather than solely blaming the government.

Okunnu noted that the price of petrol the previous day was ₦1,240 per litre, but it had risen to ₦1,340 per litre the following day.

He wondered why petrol prices continued to rise in Nigeria, unlike in other countries, and asked rhetorically whether the government should be blamed when marketers were hiking prices to their own advantage.

“What the marketers are doing with regards to petrol pump prices is not small. We know there is war in Israel and Iran, but don’t we have our own crude oil? Why is our petrol so expensive? Other countries have petrol, why is theirs not as expensive as ours? We are the ones punishing ourselves,” he said.

Okunnu’s remarks came weeks after industry colleague Kunle Afolayan lamented the challenges of fuelling his business, Kunle Afolayan Movie Production Village and Resort, which relies heavily on diesel.

Afolayan added that the repeated diesel price hikes had made it difficult to continue operations and disclosed that he had spent about ₦11 million on diesel in just four to five weeks. He urged Nigerians to invest in his film resort, to enable him finance alternative power sources to sustain the business.

His outcry sparked mixed reactions online, with some insisting the government should enforce regulations, while others agreed with Okunnu that the situation is partly self-inflicted by citizens.