Date Published: 05/04/09

Sir,

Abuja fuel crisis: Disgrace of a nation

I just came back from Abuja last weekend.  Before then I had visited seven weeks back. During my latest visit, I discovered that the fuel crisis which I saw seven weeks ago was still there.

It is a pity that a government official I went to see could not make self available because she had to crawl in the queue from 7-am till 12-mid night without getting petrol into her car tank; it did not get to her turn, she informed me. She had to repeat the place the next morning, having her car abandoned there at the petrol station overnight.

The above scenario is what is obtained in all the filling stations around FCT, Abuja. It is not only that the situations are so but have altered the original plan of Abuja in that the queues at each of the petrol stations are many miles long and created unprecedented continuous traffic hold up all over the city.

While I was at the airport on Friday May 1, 2009 waiting for my flight back to Lagos, I could hear someone communicating on phone with another who was supposed to be with him on the same flight to Lagos but could not make it because he complained that he queued at one of the NNPC Mega-Petrol Stations in the city till 3-am that morning without success of getting petrol into his car.

I then wondered why President Yar’Adua in whose domain this is happening took more interest in arranging meeting with the Lagos State Governor Fashola during the 2-day tankers’ strike in Lagos whereas greater fuel crisis existed in Abuja. A friend was quick to say that probably the President did so knowing that in Lagos it is easier than in Abuja to arrange protests. He also commented that it looks like no governments exist any longer in Nigeria.

M. Okon Uwem, Atabong Road, Eket, Akwa Ibom State.

okonuwem@yahoo.com