Resurface of long fuel queues
The shortage of Premium Motor Spirit(PMS), popularly known as fuel has become a reoccurring crisis without no permanent solution. This have now become a routine national embarrassment as the sixth largest exporter of crude oil in Africa.
The Federal Capital Territory(FCT), Lagos, and other cities are faced with another round of fuel scarcity as queues resurface.
In some parts, it is either you buy at black market price of N200-250 per litre or you spend sleepless hours queueing without8 a guarantee of getting fuel.
The pain differs those who depend on fuel to run their businesses; same fate goes for people without constant power supply.
By implication, there is a spiralling effect on the prices of goods and services, transportation fares and others.
Several explanations have been given as factors for the scarcity. For instance former Secretary Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, (IPMAN), Mr. Mike Osatuyi, attributed the scarcity to inadequate supply in the past few days.
He told Journalists that as a result of the supply shortfall, depots prices had risen to N180 per litre in Lagos and its environs.
He said, “The situation has culminated in higher prices at the depots. Our members, who find it difficult to get the product, pay between N175 – N185 per litre. Consequently, we are compelled to sell at higher prices in order to cover cost.”
The President of Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), Debo Ahmed had on Monday attributed the petrol scarcity in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and its environs on supply gap the blockade created.
Earlier, a the peak of the flood situation in Lokoja, Kogi State, The Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority(NMDPRA) said the current fuel scarcity in Abuja and other surrounding states is caused by the inability of fuel trucks to have access to Lokoja roads. The regulatory body said the roads were flooded.
The agency, however, assured that there was enough fuel stock and therefore appealed to members of the public to avoid panic buying as all efforts were being made to resolve fuel shortage in some filling stations in Abuja and its environs.
According to a statement from the agency, the Lokoja flooding had affected the distribution of petroleum products to the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, and environs as water had submerged a greater part of Lokoja city and grounded all vehicular movements, adding that as part of measures to mitigate the situation, “trucking via alternative routes is currently ongoing.”
But now that the flood has receded, the scarcity of the petroleum products persisted in Abuja, its environs, Lagos and other cities.
Though the IPMAN’s President in a statement has attributed the current scarcity to the break in supply of the product, stressing that there was a lot of product in the depots.
“They (suppliers) have to load from the depots to meet up because as it is coming, people are buying. A lot of people are thinking there is still the iscarcity so they will queue. It is not that there is no product, there is a lot of product in the depots. So, it is because of the break in supply of the product that is still causing the scarcity,” he noted.
However these justifications sound whether on the part NMDPRA or IPMAN, what ordinary Nigerians needs is availability of fuel, not an amorphous brand of excuses.
Fuel scarcity comes with an occassioned hardship whereby, car owners, motorists spend unusual hours queuing for fuel in filling stations. This shouldn’t be the fate of anybody, not even ones enemy.
Aside being the poverty capital of the World, Nigeria prides herself with perennial hardship in the name fuel scarcity. In a nation with the 10th largest Crude oil reserves, but its citizen queue daily in filling stations in search of Fuel. For many Nigerians, the hardship seems to have waste their time; spending the whole day in the filling stations queueing for petrol is just a layer of tough times one faces living in Nigeria.
At this time and season fuel scarcity shouldn’t be added to the existing long list of worries for Nigerians. Federal Government should do everything possible to make sufficient supply of petrol across the country. Here, fixing our moribund refineries is key. Yearly, budget are allocated for the revamping of Nigeria refineries; now is the time to utilize those monies.
Also the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL), oil marketers and indeed other stakeholders are to put the interest of the country first, it is only when this is done, that there will be light at the end of the tunnel.
Even though NNPC has placed order for repair of its 445,000 barrels per refineries, the focus of the government should be to boost in-country refining capacity.
