FG Slams Skyrocketing ₦12,500 Cement Prices as Unacceptable; Threatens Rigid Stance Against Contractor Variations Ahead of July 1 Manufacturer Showdown

The Federal Government of Nigeria has intensified administrative pressure on the nation’s dominant building materials cartels, with the Ministry of Works flatly declaring the persistent, astronomical rise in the retail cost of cement as completely unacceptable and damaging to national development.

The high-intensity policy brief unzipped following a keynote address delivered by the Minister of Works, Senator David Umahi, at the Lagos Continental Hotel. Speaking during the official corporate identity unveiling of Lafarge Africa—which has formally rebranded and initialized operations under its new corporate name, HBM, following a major acquisition by the Chinese-based HUAXIN Group—the minister transformed what was designed as a corporate celebration into a rigorous infrastructure audit.

The extensive executive warnings, later backed up by a formal statement from the minister’s Senior Special Assistant on Media, Francis Nwaze, land on the 2026 economic calendar as an aggressive defensive shield against the hyper-inflationary trends currently crumbling public and private construction activities across subnational borders.

According to verified market data logs, a standard 50kg bag of cement has hit a record retail baseline selling for not less than ₦12,500, with several urban centers recording surge peaks between ₦13,000 and ₦15,000.

Umahi maintained that this steady, recurring price hike has triggered a highly volatile wave of friction within the infrastructure sector, with construction firms and contractors heavily mounting pressure on the ministry to approve massive contract variations and upward project budget reviews to cover material inflation.

Refusing to yield to the fiscal pressure, the minister flatly shut down the prospect of public treasury bailouts, declaring that the central cabinet will no longer adjust project contracts to accommodate artificial market spikes.

“I want to insist that Lafarge, now HBM, and other manufacturers of cement across this country must immediately reduce their prices,” Senator David Umahi declared with absolute candor during his executive address. “We shall be engaging formally on this issue from the first of July, 2026. Manufacturers of cement must look inward, review their pricing, and adjust their cost structures because right now, the contractors are completely choking me to review their federal contracts. But let me make this abundantly clear to everyone: nobody is reviewing anybody’s contract. It is the manufacturers that must make the necessary sacrifices to support the country’s economic reality.”

The pricing gridlock carries immense structural weight due to the administration’s relentless, tech-driven policy layout. Since assuming office under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda, Engr. Umahi has aggressively mandated a nationwide migration toward rigid concrete pavement technology over traditional asphalt surfaces for all legacy projects, including the highly praised Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway and the newly awarded ₦668 billion Trans-Sahara Super Highway.

By cementing concrete as the literal backbone of Nigeria’s infrastructure expansion, the federal cabinet has significantly inflated domestic consumption metrics, inadvertently giving manufacturing cartels extreme market leverage.

While producers have previously blamed rising energy tariffs, expensive gas indexing to the dollar, and complex foreign exchange tracks for machinery spare parts, the government insists that since the primary raw materials are sourced locally within Nigerian borders, the current retail surge remains entirely unjustifiable.

To find a permanent resolution before the nation’s housing and transport drives stall, the minister announced that a series of high-level stakeholder engagements will initialize on July 1 to force a structured downward review of ex-factory pricing grids.