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Turns focus on other states
The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has said that scarcity of petrol in Abuja and Lagos has become a thing of the past, adding that it has successfully cleared petrol queues in both cities and was now heading to repeat the same in other states of the federation.
The corporation in a statement yesterday from its Group General Manager, Public Affairs, Mr. Ndu Ughamadu stated that with the situation in Abuja and Lagos contained, it would not focus on increasing truck-outs of petrol to other states, in order to restore normalcy across the country.
The statement, which quoted NNPC’s Group Managing Director, Dr. Maikanti Baru on the efforts made so far by the corporation to clear the fuel queues, came just as a coalition of civil society groups under the aegis of Civil Society for Development Initiative (CSDI) came down hard on oil marketers in the country, stating that they were behind the scarcity at a time Nigerians were celebrating the Christmas and New Year festivities.
Baru was quoted as saying: “As far as the truck out is concerned, we have more than doubled the number of trucks that are going out into the country.
“Yesterday (Saturday), we loaded and distributed products from coastal and strategic inland depots like Jos. We loaded I,733 trucks yesterday and the actual normal number of trucks we require to keep the country wet is about 700 but we had been doing 800 to 850 trucks before the petrol scarcity.
“We have stepped up the number of truck-outs to 1,733 as a minimum and we have sustained this for a week and there will be more than enough products for motorists in the weeks ahead.”
Insisting that the scarcity could have been avoided, Baru said marketers had engaged in the unlawful practice of hoarding and diversion of the product to prolong the situation.
He said most state capitals would get more supplies of products latest yesterday to restore normalcy.
“We have maintained our position that this scarcity is self-inflicted by marketers. The NNPC has more than 30 days sufficiency of petroleum products, especially petrol, and at the current consumption rate of about 27 to 28 million litres per day, we should be very comfortable until the end of January 2018, even if we don’t import a drop of petrol into this country,” he explained.
He equally warned marketers diverting petroleum products to stop, stressing that they bought petrol at N133.28k per litre from the depots and would in addition to the transportation cost of N7.20k per litre, still make a comfortable margin.
Monitoring of the situation in Abuja showed that the queues had reduced significantly or were even non-existent in most of the service stations visited yesterday.
Meanwhile, the National Coordinator of CSDI, Mr. Abolore Bakare, yesterday blamed oil marketers for attempting to browbeat the government into reintroducing subsidy payments.
He claimed that the fuel scarcity was artificial and the handiwork of those in the oil and gas downstream, in their attempt to foist their exploitative interests on NNPC through the subsidy regime and price hike.
“We have it on good authority that oil marketers proposed an increase in the pump price to N171.05k which the NNPC declined. That was why they have decided to create the artificial scarcity.
“It is glaring to all Nigerians that the downstream operators have made up their minds to sabotage effort of government at all cost. That’s why they’re hoarding fuel at filling stations across the country,” Bakare alleged.
He added: “We were appalled that when officials of NNPC, including the GMD, Maikanti Baru, the PPPRA executive secretary and Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, were on a supervisory tour of filling stations, these sabotours stuck to their guns.”
The group also said it was suspicious of the complicity of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) and the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) in the fuel crisis experienced nationwide.
Also citing the refusal of both bodies to honour the invitation of the Senate Committee on Petroleum (downstream), it urged NNPC not to acquiesce to the demands of the marketers.
