WHY should a country endowed with abundant limestone, producing substantially more cement than it consumes and exporting some of that cement to other countries, have its citizens paying considerably more for the product than consumers elsewhere in Africa? That is the question the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) has finally begun asking. It is a question Nigerians have asked for years.
Following a three-month cross-border investigation, the FCCPC says its preliminary findings suggest possible manipulation of cement prices in Nigeria. The commission compared Nigeria with Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, Egypt, Morocco, Algeria and Togo, examining limestone availability, population, production capacity, consumption and retail prices. The numbers are troubling. According to the FCCPC, Nigeria possesses installed cement production capacity of more than 60-65 million metric tonnes annually, against domestic consumption of approximately 25-30 million tonnes. In other words, installed capacity is more than twice the estimated domestic demand. Nigeria is also a net exporter of cement. Ordinarily, substantial excess capacity and competition among producers should exert downward pressure on prices. Instead, the opposite has been happening. The FCCPC says a 50kg bag selling for between ?9,300 and ?9,700 in January 2026 had risen to ?10,500-?13,000 by mid-year and ?13,000-?15,000 in some locations by July. Meanwhile, the commission found the equivalent price to be about ?7,344 in Kenya, ?6,528 in Tanzania and ?9,180 in Togo. Remarkably, Togo does not even have limestone deposits.
Something requires explanation. The FCCPC is therefore right to investigate whether these prices result entirely from legitimate production costs or whether coordinated behaviour, abuse of market power, restriction of domestic supply or anti-competitive distribution practices are involved. Three major producers reportedly control more than 90 percent of Nigeria’s installed cement production capacity. Such concentration makes vigorous regulation indispensable. Alhaji Aliko Dangote offered an explanation. In December 2025, he argued that cement exported from Nigeria could be sold more cheaply because exports escaped taxes and levies borne by domestic business. He listed company income tax, education and health levies, VAT and withholding tax, arguing that removing these burdens enables Nigerian cement to compete with producers from Turkey, Russia and China. His argument should not be dismissed. Nigeria unquestionably imposes substantial fiscal, energy, infrastructure and regulatory costs on manufacturers. Producers have also identified expensive energy, naira depreciation, imported machinery and spare parts, transportation and logistics as important contributors to cement prices.
But Dangote’s explanation also raises further questions. Company income tax is imposed on profits, rather than being a 30 percent tax added directly to the retail price of every bag. Withholding tax is principally a mechanism for collecting tax rather than necessarily an additional 10 percent production cost. More importantly, Nigeria’s tax regime changed from January 2026 under the Nigeria Tax Act 2025, including consolidation of several previous levies into a Development Levy. The FCCPC should therefore establish precisely how much taxation currently contributes to the factory-gate cost of one 50kg bag. Let the figures speak.
There is another figure the commission should examine. Dangote Cement reported that its Nigerian operations achieved an EBITDA margin of approximately 61 percent in the first quarter of 2026, compared with 56.7 percent a year earlier. Nigerian cement and clinker exports simultaneously increased substantially. High profitability is not illegal. Businesses exist to make profits. But when consumers are told that extraordinary prices principally reflect extraordinary costs, strong margins make examination of the relationship between costs, prices and profits legitimate. The FCCPC must go beyond announcing suspicions. It should determine the ex-factory price of cement, manufacturers’ production costs and margins, distributor and retailer margins, capacity utilisation, domestic dispatch volumes, export volumes, transportation costs and the actual tax burden embedded in domestic cement prices. One producer reportedly declined to make its records available during the preliminary exercise. The commission should tell Nigerians who it was and use its lawful powers to obtain the information required.
The government itself cannot escape scrutiny. If Dangote and other manufacturers can demonstrate that Nigeria’s tax structure, energy costs, import duties, roads and regulatory charges make cement unnecessarily expensive domestically, the government must remove those distortions. It makes little sense to promote local manufacturing only to construct a fiscal and infrastructural system that makes locally manufactured goods cheaper for foreigners than for Nigerians. But manufacturers cannot have it both ways either. Government policy has protected and nurtured domestic cement production for years. Nigeria pursued backward integration and restricted imports partly to build domestic manufacturing capacity. Having achieved self-sufficiency and become an exporter, Nigerians are entitled to expect some consumer dividend from that industrial policy.
Indeed, in February 2024, after another extraordinary price increase, the Federal Government and the three major manufacturers-Dangote Cement, BUA Cement and Lafarge Africa-agreed that cement should sell for roughly ?7,000-?8,000 per 50kg bag depending on location. Two years later, Nigerians are seeing prices approaching twice the lower end of that range in some places. Cement is not a luxury product. It sits at the foundation of housing, roads, schools, hospitals, factories and virtually every major construction project. Every unjustified increase eventually appears in rents, house prices, infrastructure costs and government contracts. In a country struggling with an enormous housing deficit, unaffordable cement becomes an economic and social problem.
We commend the FCCPC for conducting a comparative African study rather than accepting explanations from manufacturers at face value. This is what an economic regulator should do. But Nigerians have seen regulatory investigations announced with fanfare before disappearing quietly. The forces and interests involved in the cement industry are formidable. That is precisely why the FCCPC must demonstrate that the Nigerian state is more formidable. Let it establish the facts, publish its findings, identify wrongdoing where the evidence establishes it, punish anti-competitive conduct where proven, and recommend government reforms where government itself is responsible.
Nigeria has the limestone, the factories and surplus capacity. Why should Nigerians pay more for Nigerian cement than the countries it exports it to?