The acute shortage of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), also known as petrol, defied the Thursday deadline given by the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu. As at yesterday, the long queues were still visible at various fuel stations in Abuja, Lagos and across the states. Kachikwu, who doubles as the Group Managing Director of Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), had while briefing the members of the National Assembly last week, stated that the fuel scarcity would ease out and the queues disappear this week.
“Hopefully by today through Thursday, the fuel queues in Abuja should be over. Hopefully, the same thing will happen to Lagos and thereafter, by the weekend, we should see Kano, Katsina, Sokoto, Port Harcourt and Warri get off this state,” Kachikwu said.
As at yesterday, most of the independent marketers in Abuja were not selling fuel while the NNPC outlets and some major marketers dispensed the products. Most of the stations in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) that were selling the product had long queues of over two kilometres stretch as at noon. At the Forte Oil Station, opposite Transcorp Hilton Hotels and Conoil Station opposite NNPC Towers, Herbert Marcauley Way, in Abuja, motorists were seen queuing for fuel.
However, unlike what existed last week, the queues were not as lengthy as they used to be and it took motorists an average of 20 minutes to buy and leave the fuel station. Samuel Adigun, a motorist on the fuel queue at one of the filling stations in Wuse, told New Telegraph that he believed that by Sunday, the queue would have totally disappeared going by the number of fuel stations that were selling fuel in the metropolis.
In other parts of Abuja, many fuel stations remained under lock and key, some of them due to what the fuel station attendants described as unavailability of petroleum products to dispense to the public. At the Conoil filling station, Utako, the gates of the station were locked as at 2p.m. and there was no sign of commercial activities within the premises.
The situation was the same at Eterna Oil also located in Utako, but in this case, some motorists parked their cars around the fuel station with the hope that they will commence selling fuel. In the entire Utako/ Jabi District, only Mobil fuel station was selling PMS to motorists, and of course, there was a very long queue of vehicles waiting to be served when our correspondent visited the area. However, when
our correspondent visited Kubwa Road, most of the fuel stations along the busy 10 lane road had PMS, but only a few of them were selling to motorists.The busiest spot was the NNPC Mega Station where a queue, stretching over two kilometres, was formed by motorists waiting to buy petrol. At Rahamanniya fuel station, pump attendants were seen selling fuel to motorists as at 2:30p.m. The same was the scenario at A.A Rano located at Asokoro District of Abuja. In Lagos, it was observed yesterday that while more filling stations got the product, others were still under lock and key for being unable to get the product.
The long queues were still noticed at the stations that were dispensing the product in Lagos yesterday. Stations in this category were Mobil filling station at Onipanu, Ota, Ogun State; Total filling station on Acme-Wempco link road, Total at Salolo on Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway, Mobil filling station in Agege and Ascon filling station in Ogba, Lagos.
Long queues were also noticed at the Total filling station and Mobil filling station on Mobolaji Bank Anthony way, the NNPC mega stations in U-turn and Casso, Oando filling station in Abule Taylor, Energy filling station, Jolaco filling station in Ijaiye, and Total filling station in Pen Cinema, Agege. Most filling stations on Ikorodu Road, Apapa, Ikorodu and Ikeja areas were selling, though there were long queues. On Ikorodu Road, vehicular movement was hindered at NIPCO station at Fadeyi and Forte Oil at Onipanu where there were long queues of vehicles.
At Fatgbems filling station, Second Rainbow, Okada riders and some commercial buses locked down the road in a bid to get petrol. On Iju road, Agege, Imola filling station equally had long queues of vehicles in spite of selling a litre of petrol at N180. When New Telegraph visited Total station on Acme-Wempco link road, some of their attendants demanded for N300 bribe before they could sell the product for our reporter who had been in the queue for over six hours.
They were seen selling the product for black marketers, mainly area boys with generator tanks at the rate of N120 per litre. The boys immediately emptied the tanks into waiting kegs and returned to the queues to buy the product again. This came as the Federal Government deployed operatives of the Department of State Services (DSS) on depots in Lagos and filling stations across the states and Abuja.
New Telegraph gathered that the monitoring of filling stations by the DSS was to ensure that the product, which is being loaded massively at the Apapa depots to various stations in Lagos and Abuja, got to end buyers at the pump price. A management staff of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), who hinted New Telegraph, maintained that the monitoring by DSS was done to ensure that the deadline given by the minister to end scarcity in Lagos and Abuja was met.
“The government will want to do everything possible to ensure that the long queues for fuel nationwide end and we have identified sufficient monitoring of the product’s supply chain as being cardinal to achieving this. “While personnel of all the uniformed security agencies, including men of the Nigeria Police Force, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) are involved in this, the DSS agents have also been co-opted into this. They have their strategies on how to do this, but that will be done across the supply chain,” he said.
New Telegraph gathered that DSS agents on duty picked up an attendant in one of the filling stations on Oba Akran road, Ikeja, Lagos over sharp practices.
The attendant was said to be selling PMS inside kegs to black marketers when the DSS officials came. “We were instructed by our manager that we should not sell into jerry cans if we don’t want to go to jail and I do not want to go to jail,” an attendant at the Mobil filling station, Emmanuel bus stop, Agege, told New Telegraph. Oil marketers in the South-West Zone of the country have commenced loading of petrol in Apapa, Lagos as the major depots offer 24 hours service. More than 1,000 tankers were loading the product.
Articulated vehicles were sighted at Capital Oil, Folawiyo, NIPCO, Aiteo, Mobil, Rahamaniya, De Jones and Integrated Oil loading points.
Some of the depot owners, who preferred anonymity, disclosed that workers had been compelled to do 24-hour massive loading of petrol since April 5 to ease the scarcity. They claimed that about four vessels bearing 33,000 metric tonnes of petrol had berthed to discharge into storage facilities under the throughput arrangement agreement with the NNPC. The depot owners said that the deadline set by the minister would not be achieved.
According to them, most trucks that load in Apapa do not only serve Lagos metropolis, but also travel to other states in the South-West. “We are faced with logistics challenges in loading some of the trucks because some of the marketers who are in joint vessel allocation delay in clearing their lines. “The vessel, which was meant for three marketers, takes longer time to discharge due to some hitches of discharging into their storage facilities.
“Another challenge has to do with clearance from the Navy, PPPRA, DPR and other agencies in charge of inspection to ascertain marketers who are going to be paid on subsidy schemes. “It is easier to discharge to a marketer than joint allocation of many marketers. This is another cause of delay in loading of the product,” they said.
Long queues of tankers dotted the service lanes of Apapa Oshodi expressway, from Cele Bus Stop to Ibafon jetty yesterday. Security officials had a hectic time controlling traffic to ensure that the truck drivers complied with traffic rules.