By Sunday Etuka, Abuja
The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd.) has attributed the fuel scarcity being experienced across the country to logistics issues, announcing that the hitches have been resolved.
Mr. Olufemi Soneye, the Chief Communications Officer of the NNPC Ltd., announced the development in a statement on Thursday.
He noted that the prices of the products are not changing, therefore, urges Nigerians not to avoid panic buying as there is a sufficiency of the products in the country.
Meanwhile, prior to this announcement, a source informed TheFact Daily of an ongoing meeting between the Depot and Petroleum Products Marketers Association of Nigeria (DAPPMAN), and Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) to resolve the issues.
However, the paper gathered that the scarcity was due to issues around depot the price of the products.
Commercial drivers and civil servants are the worst hit of the current fuel scarcity in Abuja as the queues continue to build up in filling stations across the nation’s capital.
TheFact Daily Checks revealed that most of the filling stations in Abuja are not dispensing the products to motorists, as they are all out of stock.
Major retail filling stations like A.Y.M Shafa, Mobil, A.A Rano, NNPC along Karu-Nyanya-Kugbo are all out of stock.
Even the ones that are dispensing in the town like NNPC, Total and NIPCO are overwhelmed by motorists jostling to buy the products.
Speaking to this paper, a motorist, John said, he was on a queue for close to two hours at NIPCO along Karu-Jikwoyi just to get the product.
“The situation is terrible my brother. NIPCO was the only filling station selling, so I was there for almost two hours before I bought fuel”, he said.
As habitually the case, the Black Marketers are making brisk business from the situation. For instance, a litre of fuel that was previously sold at the black-market rate of N700 is now being sold for N1500.
5 litres of fuel that was previously sold for N3,500 at the black is now N7,500, and so on.
Even private car owners are smiling to the banks, as they are taking advantage of the situation to hike fares.
The civil servants with meagre salaries are not only paying more, but are losing man hours to board vehicles to their places of work.
