Thousands of motorists and petrol seekers in Abuja and neighbouring states<\/p>\n
of Nasarawa, Kaduna and Lagos among others besieged filling stations on
\nFriday in a bid to purchase premium motor spirit following the promise of
\nthe Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, that the
\nqueues for the product would disappear by the preceding day, being
\nThursday.<\/p>\n
The queues, however, never disappeared but grew longer on Friday, a
\ndevelopment that led to the deployment of staff from the headquarters of
\nthe Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation to assist attendants at
\nvarious outlets.<\/p>\n
Some of the NNPC workers were sighted at the gates of a few filling
\nstations in Abuja on Friday, controlling the entry and exit of motorists
\nat the outlets.<\/p>\n
Our correspondent saw some of the NNPC employees at the Total and Conoil
\nfilling stations located opposite the four towers of the corporation in
\nAbuja on Friday. But their presence did not reduce the queues in front of
\nthe filling stations as hundreds of desperate motorists struggled to make
\nway into the outlets in order to buy the product.<\/p>\n
One of our correspondents, who monitored the fuel situation in Lagos,
\nfound out that rather than reduce, queues grew longer in many parts of the
\nstate.<\/p>\n
In Ikeja, the Mobil filling stations at Oba Ogunji Road and Oba Akran
\nAvenue had long queues of motorists, who had thronged the stations to
\npurchase petrol.<\/p>\n
Some of the stations, where queues remained lengthy in Ikeja as of Friday
\ninclude NNPC station, Omole; Oando station along Oba Ogunnusi Road; MRS
\nstation at Ikeja, Ascon station, Akilo, and Conoil station at GRA.<\/p>\n
The situation was the same in other parts of Lagos and some motorists
\nstated that the announcement by the petroleum minister made many fuel
\nseekers to come out to petrol stations.<\/p>\n
\u201cI read it in the newspapers that the queues will reduce in Abuja by
\nThursday and that is why I came out to buy fuel today. But what I\u2019m seeing
\nis even worse than what we saw earlier in the week,\u201d James Atonko, a
\nmotorist at the Conoil filling station, said.<\/p>\n
Kachikwu had on Tuesday announced that petrol queues would subside in
\nAbuja and Lagos by Wednesday\/Thursday, adding that the scarcity would
\nreduce in other parts of the country by the weekend.<\/p>\n
The minister had said, \u201cHopefully by tomorrow (Wednesday)\/Thursday the
\nfuel queues in Abuja should be over. Hopefully the same thing will happen
\nto Lagos, and a day after, by the weekend, we should see Kano, Katsina,
\nSokoto, Port Harcourt and Warri getting enough products.\u201d<\/p>\n
But marketers had told our correspondent that the petrol scarcity would
\npersist beyond this week in many parts of Nigeria due to issues of
\nlogistics, limited volumes of PMS imported through vessels and clearance
\nprocedures for the product as undertaken by agencies in the downstream oil
\nsector.<\/p>\n
An official with Nipco Plc, who spoke to one of our correspondents on
\ncondition of anonymity, said, \u201cThe queues in Nigeria can\u2019t clear this
\nweek. Even if we have 100 vessels lined up, there are other logistic
\nissues that follow and must be sorted out, and there are some agencies
\nthat come on board to do these things.\u201d<\/p>\n
Also, a former Treasurer of the Independent Petroleum Marketers
\nAssociation of Nigeria, Western Zone, Mr. Shina Amoo, said the lingering
\nfuel scarcity might not ease until the end of May.<\/p>\n
Amoo said this in a telephone interview with one of our correspondents in
\nOsogbo on Thursday.<\/p>\n
The former IPMAN chief said oil marketers could not buy above the
\nrecommended price and sell below the price, saying the crisis would begin
\nto ease only when the supply of the product improved.<\/p>\n
He said, \u201cThe April date given by the minister (Ibe Kachikwu) is not
\nfeasible. The man first said the scarcity would end by May and he came
\nunder heavy attacks so he apologised and gave another date. I don\u2019t think
\nthe scarcity will end earlier than the end of May.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe last time I bought fuel, I paid N182 per litre and how much do you
\nexpect me to sell that? It has to be higher and that is why filling
\nstations now sell as high as N200 a litre.\u201d<\/p>\n
He stressed that the period when marketers sold below the price they
\nbought the product was over, saying no marketer would do that now, no
\nmatter the threat.<\/p>\n
According to him, the situation can improve if the Nigerian National
\nPetroleum Corporation does 100 per cent fuel importation or allow
\nmarketers with good records to also import the product but with strict
\nmonitoring.<\/p>\n
Punch<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thousands of motorists and petrol seekers in Abuja and neighbouring states of Nasarawa, Kaduna and Lagos among others besieged filling stations on Friday in a bid to purchase premium motor…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43531,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\n