19th March, 2014
Following the hardship Nigerians are subjected to daily, the prevailing fuel scarcity across the country demands that a serious and urgent action be taken by government and the concerned agencies to tackle the scarcity. All the assurances from the Federal Government have failed to convince Nigerians that the crisis will soon be over.
The situation has been compounded by the announcement by the Petroleum Resources Minister, Diezani Allison-Madueke, that the government can no longer sustain the subsidy on petroleum products. The Ministry of Petroleum Resources has severally denied any intention to increase the pump price of petrol from the current N97 per litre. Despite this spirited denial, many believe the artificial scarcity is a ploy by the government to increase the pump price of petrol.
The fuel scarcity which started weeks ago has been attributed to the failure of Petroleum Products Pricing and Regulatory Agency, PPPRA, to release fuel import permit to oil marketers, refusal to settle the outstanding fuel subsidy claims of over N1 trillion and stoppage of fuel importation.
Some of the marketers have been accused of fuelling the scarcity by wilfully diverting the products in order to box the Federal Government into a corner to accede to their demands.
Although the Ministry of Petroleum Resources claimed that over 900 million of litres of petrol have been distributed to most government-owned fuel stations- NNPC stations- across the country, the supply has not made any impact as the scarcity is far from abating across the nation. While some petrol stations sell the products between N100 and N150 in most major cities across the country, others charge between N200 and N500 to sell to motorists or in jerrycans while maintaining the official pump price. Black marketers have seized the opportunity to sell a litre of petrol for between N120 and N150 in some parts of the country, while transporters have hiked their fares by as much as 200 per cent in some cases.
Many Nigerians are worried that there are no strong indications the crisis will soon come to an end because government’s effort seems to be fruitless weeks after the crisis started, which prompted analysts to say there is a hidden agenda behind the scarcity. If the government is toying with such an idea, we advise that it shelves it because of the burden of impoverishment it would further impose on the ordinary people. Nigerians cannot understand why a leading petroleum producing country and the so-called giant of Africa cannot refine the products locally but would rather resort to importation of the finished products so as to hide under subsidy to steal billions of dollars.
It is a shame that Nigeria could find itself in a mess like this. Why is it difficult for Nigeria to fix its refineries to produce at full capacity or construct new ones? If the refineries are in good shape, a situation where importers/ marketers hold Nigerians to ransom will be avoided. Now that the government is desperately planning to remove the so-called subsidy, the cart must not be put before the horse. Refineries must produce at full capacity to meet local demand so that the issue surrounding the fraudulent subsidy could be laid to rest permanently. This grand deception has to stop.