By Augustine Akhilomen
…Nigerians Groan As Queues Persist In Lagos
…Filling Stations Blame Landing Cost Of Product
It appears there is no end in sight or permanent solution to the continuous shortage of fuel in Nigeria after the usual fuel queues resurfaced in some parts of the country on Monday morning.
The shortage of fuel has created chaos in Nigeria’s main cities, Abuja and Lagos, with long queues of cars and gallons outside petrol stations stretching several hundreds of metres.
The long queue of vehicles, which were hitherto absent on the mainland area, seems to have stretched to that axis as the scarcity of petrol persisted across the state on Tuesday and early Wednesday, leading to gridlock across the state and in most cases affecting movement.
Investigations showed that some petrol stations were locked while a number of them that were opened for business, had long queues of motorists waiting to buy fuel, both on the Island and mainland axis of Lagos.
Despite Nigeria being among the world’s oil producing nations, the country has struggled to solve the lingering fuel crisis that has become a constant source of worry for Nigerians.
The lack of fuel has also led to an increase in the price of public transport in several cities.
The country’s four oil refineries are either not operating or operating below capacity. Despite millions of dollars spent on the revitalization of the refineries, there’s little to show for the huge outlay of scarce foreign exchange. Many Nigerians view such expenditures as drain pipe of public funds.
Recall that early this year, precisely February, the nation was also thrown into darkness after Nigeria’s national oil company, NNPC, claimed that the fuel shortage was as a result of importation of contaminated fuel to the country.
It was alleged that some of the petrol imported into the country under the Direct Sale, Direct Purchase (DSDP) contract has a high content of methanol and ethanol, which are regarded as highly harmful.
For everyone, it has been untold hardship since early February when the fuel scarcity situation began to emerge.
No doubt, the Nigerian economy has been strained by protracted scarcity of petrol, which has led to business slow down, shutdowns and loss of man hours for consumers who stayed on fuel queues for hours unending.
No part of the country seems to be spared from the horror.
In Lagos, commuters accuse commercial drivers of being wicked for hiking transport fares.
One of them, Oluwole Kadiri, a civil servant, said, “more than anything, these drivers have further aggravated the crisis occasioned by the fuel scarcity. They are so obsessed with making a fortune of an already bad situation. They lack human face in all they are doing, their major concern is increasing their daily take home. This is not the best way to treat ourselves in moments of crisis. we don’t have to be heartless to make it in life.”
In a reaction to the development, a private sector worker, Saeed Sulaiman, said the government should direct “workers in both the private and public sectors to work from home pending when the self-imposed scarcity will be over.
“I am just beginning to imagine why it has become difficult for the government to fix the situation. It is high time we sat back as a nation to ask ourselves if we really want to progress. It is just pathetic that we like making life unbearable for ourselves whenever anything such as fuel scarcity happens.”
A female teacher who simply gave her name as Sandra lamented the plight of Nigerians since the fuel scarcity returned.
She said: “I just asked them and they gave me a price that really scared me. Buying a 10-litre worth of fuel at between N6, 000 and N7,000 to do what? Where are we really headed? We must not continue this way till the weekend, otherwise there would be crisis. I just hope this is not a design by some people to further make a case for an increase in the price of the commodity.
“I would rather go and park the vehicle home and go to work at an exorbitant price. This calls for a serious emergency, especially at this critical time in the life of the nation. If you ask me, I will simply say workers, in both the private and public sectors, should be allowed to work from home. I hope the government is aware that this development can further aggravate the already bad security situation in the country.”
A commercial motorist who gave his name as Michael, who had besieged Conoil fuel station in search of the product, lamented the situation, saying he had spent virtually all the day on queue waiting to take his turn at the filling station.
“Help us talk to the government; this is just the least service we can ask of them. Why should getting fuel to buy with your money be a major problem again? I have been on this queue for over 5 hours and there is no hope of me getting fuel. We can’t continue this way as a nation aspiring to prosper.?
Amid fears that the scarcity might be a result of industrial action by members of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), the union said it took a decision to go on strike.
According to him, the situation across the state is as a result of the operating environment which has become hostile to their businesses.
“Members of Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria IPMAN have shut down their stations, not because we are striking; we are not on strike,” he said.
“Rather, the business environment has been very hostile to us such that we can no longer do business under this condition. For you to load a litre of petrol, you pay in N162 per litre. You now have to add the cost of transportation which is between N6 to N8, depending on the distance within Lagos,” he explained. “If it is outside Lagos, it is much more than that.
“So, if you add N8 to N162, you already have N170 and the government which is the regulator wants us to sell at N165; we have not even added the charges at the depot and the running cost at our stations. You know what diesel says now, and you know how epileptic power supply is; we run on generators, using diesel at N800 per litre. There is no station in Lagos that uses less than 50 litres (of diesel) per day.
“So, our members can no longer sell (petrol) at N165 per litre; in fact, there is no reasonable person in this business that can sell below N180 per litre, so it is not as if we are on strike,” he concluded.
So, for how long will Nigerians, who are always at the receiving end of this endless and perennial scarcity, continue to bear the brunt of a government that is evidently short of ideas? Or as an observer recently noted, how can one reconcile the fact that a country with four refineries is still dependent on fuel importation and still spending more than N4 trillion to subsidize oil consumption?