Dare Olawin
The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited on Monday began offloading 240 million litres of Premium Motor Spirit, otherwise called petrol, as it stepped up efforts to tackle the worsening nationwide petrol scarcity.
As the NNPCL began offloading petrol, filling stations sold
the product at an average price of N800 per litre in various locations.
One of our correspondents gathered that the 240 million
litres of petrol imported into the country came in through five vessels, which
were offloaded into five depots on Monday.
The South-West Regional Coordinator of the Nigerian
Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, Ayo Cardoso, confirmed
this in an interview with The PUNCH on Monday.
The PUNCH reported on Monday that despite claims by the NNPC
that the logistic issues causing fuel scarcity had been addressed, Nigerians in
Lagos and other parts of the country still struggled to get fuel as many
filling stations remained shut.
The PUNCH independently gathered that the situation might
worsen in Lagos and other parts of the South-West because there was a directive
by the NNPC that fuel trucks must first service the Federal Capital Territory
before any other places.
According to oil sector sources, hundreds of trucks loaded
were sent to Abuja on Sunday based on the NNPC directive.
Our correspondents who visited filling stations across the
country on Monday observed that many outlets hiked their pump prices, selling a
litre of petrol between N650 and over N1,000.
As the stations increased the pump prices of fuel, it was
learnt that black marketers also used the opportunity to make brisk business,
selling a litre of petrol at prices of over N1,200/litre, depending on the
location and the bargaining strength of the buyer.
It was also observed that the hardship being encountered as
a result of fuel scarcity worsened on Monday. The queues in filling stations
became longer as work resumed across the nation for the new week.
The fuel scarcity also coincided with the resumption of
public schools in some states, adding to the burden on parents, teachers and
school owners.
Speaking with The PUNCH, the NMDPRA regional coordinator
said the agency was doing its best to ensure Nigerians were not exploited by
filling stations.
“We are doing something about the fuel crisis; very soon it
will be over. Vessels are discharging as I am talking to you. What we are
concentrating on is to push the NNPC, which is the supplier of last resort, to
make sure they wet the entire populace.
“So, we have about five vessels already discharging the
product, about 240 million litres are being discharged as I am talking to you
right now. We are working round the clock.
“But then, once you have a problem, it takes like one or two
weeks to (normalise), but people will keep on panicking, which is not supposed
to be. All these kinds of things disrupt the normal way of operations. But with
240 million litres coming in from five vessels discharging to five depots
already today, things will get back to normal,” Cardoso assured Nigerians.
Scarcity spreads
Our correspondents noted that the few filling stations
dispensing fuel on Monday were crowded by private and commercial drivers,
motorcyclists as well as individuals with jerry cans.
The queues were seen in Abuja as well as Lagos, Ogun, Niger,
Nasarawa, Gombe and other states.
The Heyden filling station in Iperu Remo, Ogun State sold
petrol at N650 per litre on Monday amid fights among buyers who thronged the
station from places like Isara, Ode, Ilishan and others.
A motorist, who spoke to one of our correspondents, said he
had been in the queue since 5am, yet he was unable to buy petrol as at noon.
“Look at me, I have been here since 5am, yet I couldn’t get
fuel up till noon. I came here from Isara. There is no fuel in other places.
This station belongs to the governor, maybe that’s why it is selling at the
rate of N650 per litre. A few others around us sell petrol for N800 or more,”
the motorist, who identified himself as Ismail, told The PUNCH.
A young man dressed in TotalEnergies uniform was sighted at
the Heyden filling stations with two jerry cans filled with PMS.
The man, who did not reveal his name, stated, “I came here
to buy fuel because we don’t have fuel in our station. I spent hours in the
queue despite being an attendant myself. We don’t know why there is no fuel,
but we heard that everybody is waiting for May 1 to know if the president would
say something about fuel price reduction or not”.
At WB One Oil & Gas in Ogere, the crowd was not much as
a result of the price differential between it and Heyden. The filling station
sold a litre of petrol at N900 as of Monday morning.
“I can’t buy at WB One. N900 is too much for a litre. That
is why the people there are not many. I would rather join the queue instead of
paying N900 for a litre,” Adamu, an okada rider said.
The NNPC retail outlet along the Sagamu-Interchange axis was
occupied by buyers who wanted to get the product at N580/litre.
Selling at N670, the As-Sallam filling station near the NNPC
also had a long queue. The NIPCO and AP stations near the RCCG Bus Stop did not
open for business.
Commuters heading to work, schools, and various destinations
in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital on Monday found themselves stranded due to
the effect of the lingering fuel scarcity.
Many bus stops were filled with passengers trying to board
vehicles to schools and places of work.
Our correspondents learned that some filling stations around
Rounda and Lafenwa were selling the product for N1,000/litre.
A cab driver, Mr Banji Alaba, said “The fuel problem has
continued to worsen, some filling stations in Rounda and Lafenwa area are
selling a litre for N1,000. Though we have a few selling for between N750 to
N800 the queue is killing. The NNPC filling stations are selling for N580 but
my friend who has been at one of the stations since 9 am is yet to buy fuel as
of 4 pm when I called him.
“The queue is so much and overwhelming. The cabs outside are
few because many drivers are at the filling stations and some who don’t have
the strength to spend hours at filling stations have parked their cars. How do
we feed our families?
“The schools have just resumed and a lot of us want to pay
our children’s school fees, how do we do that if we don’t work? It is really
frustrating and sad.”
Some students were also sighted trekking home because they
could not get cabs on time while those who offered to carry them increased the
fare by 70 per cent.
The Total filling station at Toll Gate, along the
Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, in Ogere sold petrol for N1,200/litre on Monday.
Also, Danco filling station and NNPC at Magboro, Ogun State,
sold for N610 and N580 respectively. While others like TAS, Mobil, Osadol,
Heyden, Amuf oil, Rainoil, and NIPCO among others were under lock and key.
Black marketers took advantage of the situation to sell the
product at exorbitant prices ranging from N1,300 to N1,800/litre.
Our correspondents, who went around major cities, saw
miscreants threatening to burn down some filling stations perceived to be
hoarding the product.
Motorists described the situation as pathetic, calling on
the government for an urgent intervention to avoid possible implosion.
The PUNCH reports that a motorist at a Mobil fuel station in
Ikotun, Lagos, who gave his name as Mr Valentine, said, “Though none of the
fuel stations have started selling, I heard they sold for N1,050 per litre
earlier”.
A resident at Egbeda, Lagos, who simply gave her name as
Peace Adeola, said commercial vehicle operators started raising their fares on
Sunday.
According to the resident, moving from Ikotun to Egbeda on
Sunday went for N600 as against N300 before now.
“The bus drivers and conductors were complaining, saying
they bought the fuel at an expensive rate of N900. We trekked home from
Egbeda,” Adeola recounted.
Also speaking, another resident of Egbeda, Ignatius Uzonna,
told one of our correspondents on Monday that the government-owned BRT buses
now recorded a high number of passengers due to the scarcity of private
commercial buses.
Our correspondents observed that a litre of fuel at the
black market was sold for N900/litre in Apapa, while an outlet belonging to
Saddeh at Egbe Bus Stop along Ikotun-Ejigbo road, sold for N1,000/litre.
The God’s Decision outlet along Governor’s Road in Ikotun
Lagos also sold petrol for N900/litre on Monday.
In Gombe State, residents frowned at the incessant increment
in petroleum prices as fuel sold across the state at N900/litre in a few
operating filling stations, and N1,400 at the black market.
An okada rider, Mohammed, said, “We are suffering and it’s
unfortunate we buy fuel at N1,400 because we can’t stay in long queues at the
filling station.”
In Makurdi, the Benue State capital, one of our
correspondents reports that the few filling stations that opened for business
sold petrol between N750 and N850/litre on Monday. Though, there were no long
queues at the filling stations.
It was a similar development in Otukpo and Gboko, the two
major urban centres in the state, where the cost of transportation had gone up.
The petrol scarcity in Ondo State affected business
activities across the state with commercial drivers slightly increasing their
fares by 50 per cent. Commuters who could not afford the fares were observed to
be trekking a long distance to their various destinations.
While some stations sold petrol for N750/litre, others sold
at N650.
It was gathered that the fuel stations in Akwa Ibom State
dispensed fuel between N700 and N740/litre across the state as of Monday.
One of our correspondents who monitored the NNPC and Fonnex
filling stations in Uyo reports that, though there was no scarcity of the
product, stations hiked prices.
A petrol attendant in one of the filling stations, who spoke
on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak on the
issue said, “There is no fuel scarcity anywhere in the state as you can see,
but we are still selling at N700.”
In Ilorin, the Kwara State capital, few petrol stations with
long queues of vehicles dispensed fuel for as high as N1,000/litre on Monday,
while the black marketers sold a litre for as high as N1,500. The stations
included Shafa, NNPC, NIPCO, and Rainoil.
However, commuters decided to trek to their destinations as
okada riders charged between N500 and N2,000, depending on the distance.
Similarly, in Ekiti State, the fuel crisis bit harder on
Monday as many car owners resorted to parking their vehicles at home and
patronised either commercial cars or bikes.
The queue was long at the NNPC filling station along Iworoko
Road which dispensed petrol at N580/litre.
A driver, simply identified as Wale, said, “It took me over
two hours before I could get to the pump at NNPC along Iworoko Road. But I was
disappointed the attendants were rationing the fuel and did not dispense above
N10,000 worth of fuel for any vehicle.”
A car wash operator along Ado Federal Polytechnic Road said
he bought five litres for N8,000.
Tunde Olomu, an okada rider, lamented, “The black-market
operators are cruel. They sell at N1,000 per litre at Nova Junction and N1,200
per litre at Atikankan”.
Olomu, who said the present situation had occasioned an
increase in transport fares, said, “We now charge about N400 for distances that
used to be N200, and N300 for those that used to be N100 and N150. I can tell
you that taxi fares have been raised as well”.
The Ekiti State Council of Nigeria Union of Journalists, at
their monthly congress, called on the state government to urgently intervene.
The NUJ, in a communiqué issued at the end of the congress,
called for an investigation of the cause of the scarcity, queues and high
prices “with a view to punishing those engaging in sharp practices to the
detriment of the citizens.”
In the same vein, fuel stations in Niger State hiked the
pump price of the product following the scarcity of fuel.
The price of fuel, PUNCH learnt, was stable and there were
no queues at the filling stations until Sunday when retailers got information
that the price of the product in neighbouring FCT was high and motorists could
not get fuel.
The stations were said to have created an artificial
scarcity and also hiked the price of petrol.
PUNCH investigation on Monday showed that most of the
stations in the state were selling a litre of fuel for N900 and above.
The black marketers were also sighted hawking the product
for N1,100 and above.
NMDPRA reacts
Meanwhile, the NMDPRA regional coordinator, Cardoso told one
of our correspondents that the agency could no longer regulate prices, saying
PMS was deregulated following the removal of subsidy by President Bola Tinubu
on May 29, 2023.
“For now, the price is based on supply and demand, but we
are still going out to make sure that people are not exploiting consumers.
“My people are on the field; they are going round. So, if
you see any specific one you think we should handle, you can let us know. But
since morning, we’ve been on the field, including myself, making sure nobody is
hoarding. You know once there is enough supply, all those things will be a
thing of the past.
“We don’t handle price anymore; it is deregulated since the
subsidy has been removed. What we do is that there is a price bound that we are
monitoring. The person who can determine the price is the person who is
supplying marketers, and that is the NNPCL. Once the NNPCL says this is what
they are selling, we just expect that there will be some margin around the
NNPCL figure and it should not be too excessive,” Cardoso said.
He further said, “If the NNPCL is selling at N580, we don’t
expect anybody to sell more than N630 or N650 at worst. If you let us know
those selling at N700 or N800, we will take action. But you have to know that
this is happening because there is scarcity. Outside scarcity, those things
will come down. We can’t use the current prices to judge what the normal price
should be.
“Any station we get to, and we see hoarding, we will ask
them to start selling and they have to sell at the official NNPC price.”
‘Don’t store fuel’
Meanwhile, Nigerians have been warned to stop hoarding fuel
in their houses to avoid a fire outbreak.
“We want to tell everybody that they should be patient,
things will get cleared very soon. We have quite enough fuel being discharged.
We want to enjoin people not to store fuel at home because of the safety issues
around it.
“This is a flammable product, and you cannot guarantee how
to handle it if you store it in your house. People should not store petroleum
products at home. There will be enough fuel very soon,” Cardoso stated.
Also, the Commissioner for Environment in Ogun State, Ola
Oresanya, warned against storing fuel at home.
Oresanya advised, “It is all about safety matters. We should
not be tempted to store fuel. PMS is a very volatile material and there is no
second chance when it comes to the safety of lives and properties.
“So, it is better for us to endure the pains of the
discomfort at the moment. Discomfort is better than loss of lives. We just want
to implore our people to make sure that they don’t store fuel in the house. We
should please avoid hoarding fuel to avoid any form of domestic or industrial
accident”.
Kwara task force
The Kwara State Government Task Force on Monday raided some
filling stations within the Ilorin metropolis, cautioning them against hoarding
of fuel.
The government said the raid was part of the government’s
measures to address fuel scarcity in the state.
In a statement, the Deputy Chief Press Secretary, Government
House Ilorin, Mashood Agboola, noted that the committee was set up by Governor
AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq to see to the problem of fuel shortage.
“As a responsible and responsive government, we cannot be
folding our hands watching. We have to see that the majority of our people
enjoy the dividends of democracy,” the leader of the task force and Chief of
Staff at Government House, Mahe Abdulkadir, told reporters during the exercise.
Abdulkadir called on the people of the state to be patient
and avoid panic-buying.
“We want to call on the people of the state to be patient
and avoid panic buying. The Federal Government is not trying to increase the
prices of fuel. We will make sure our people are not shortchanged,” he added.
This came as the National Association of Nigerian Students
threatened to embark on mass action if the Federal Government failed to take
immediate steps to address the current fuel crisis in the country.
The students’ body also asked the Group Managing Director of
the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, Mr Mele Kyari, to resign if he
could not take decisive actions to resolve the fuel crisis.
The association’s Senate President, Babatunde Akinteye, in a
statement on Monday, lamented that the fuel scarcity has left many citizens,
including students, frustrated and helpless.
The NANS senate president lamented that students are now
facing unprecedented challenges as a result of the increase in petrol pump
prices and the scarcity of the product.
While demanding immediate action from the NNPCL to resolve the fuel crisis and restore stability, Babatunde said the students would hit the streets in protest if the situation persisted. -PUNCH
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