By Clement Adeyi, Ben Adoga & Linus Aleke, Abuja
Fuel scarcity, which has once again reared its ugly head in parts of the country, has equally now assumed the toga of intractability.
Its perennial menace in the country and the accompanying challenges are resonating at sundry filling stations.
Long queues of vehicles at fuel stations and dispensing points are complementing black market operations fuelled by outrageous fuel prices.
For motorists, transporters, and commuters, the sing-song now is agony. They have to endure the agony of tracking the shortage which resurfaced in Abuja, the nation’s capital, a couple of days ago, and stretched through the weekend, and in some other parts of the country.
Apart from negative outputs such as noticed in transportation fares, such as Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Osun, Ondo, and Osun states, since Saturday the regime of non-availability of fuel which is reigning supreme in the country has been begging for a quick resolution which though the authorities have promised through a working round of the clock, is still bogged down by logistic and operational issues.
The scenario degenerated appallingly yesterday after a temporary respite in some parts of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) at the weekend.
In the nation’s capital, the scarcity has continued to bite harder as long queues of vehicles and purchasers have returned to several fuel stations.
Checks by ThisNigeria have indicated that private vehicle owners and commercial drivers have been spending long hours at stations to get fuel.
Sequel to an outrageous hike in prices of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) black marketers have piled more agonising pressure on motorists as they sell between N1,000 and N2,000 per litre as against some fuel stations selling for some N800 per litre.
And it is not only the motorists who suffer; commuters bear the ugly brunt of agony from scarcity because there are more vehicles at fuel stations than on the roads, leaving several commuters stranded, chasing few available vehicles.
Yesterday morning, the plight of commuters could only be imagined as many workers going to work were stranded.
At most bus stops, many stranded passengers waited for hours, with some of them jumping into any available vehicle for any amount of outrageous fares charged by motorists.
From Karshi, Orozo to Nyanya, only NIPCO Petrol Station sold fuel to motorists in very long queues. The long queue from NIPCO in Karu stretched to Jikwoyi Phase 1.
Even Conoil, opposite the NNPCL headquarters in Abuja Central Business District (CBD), did not open.
The NNPC Station in Zone 3 sold the product. Yet, the situation was chaotic because of the very long queue.
Another major agony suffered by the public is traffic congestion which was very noticeable from Zone 3 Junction, through Zone 4 Junction towards the Wuse Market.
In some parts of Abuja, most offices were almost empty as the numbers of workers on duty were scanty because many of them couldn’t make it to work, while others were at fuel stations waiting in the scorching sun to buy the product.
Even those who managed to go to work had to close earlier than normal to be able to find their way home in time.
A senior officer who introduced himself as a civil servant but preferred anonymity told ThisNigeria that the lack of vehicles due to fuel scarcity was affecting the workforce capacity and productivity turnover as many workers come to work late, while others are absent.
Fuel station managers, who spoke to ThisNigeria, attributed the scarcity to inadequate supply by the marketers.
They, however, blamed the NNPCL for what they described as carelessness and poor concern for the suffering that people are facing “for failing to guarantee an adequate supply of petrol.”
In the Area 1 neighbourhood of Abuja, a motorist who identified himself as Benson Okon expressed frustration over the return of queues at fuel stations in the FCT.
He noted that the scarcity of petroleum products is embarrassing and frustrating.
Okon recalled that each time the government and oil marketers wanted to increase the pump price of petroleum products, they would create an ‘artificial scarcity’ to ‘suffer buyers’, before announcing the new price.
He said, “It is not as if the product is scarce, there is fuel, but they are just suffering us. Those black marketers selling fuel N1,200 per litre, where did they get their supply? Is it not this same fuel station?
“They sell to the black marketers at night and use one or two pumps to sell in the day, just to frustrate buyers. It is a game plan. We have seen these things over and over again since the late Abacha’s days.
“Who gave these black marketers the fuel they are hawking? Fuel has turned to onions and pepper that can be hawked on the highways, streets of major cities, and in front of fuel stations.”
He said that he had been in the queue for more than two hours and was not even optimistic that he would get to the pump any time soon.
“Assuming I am working for someone, how would I cope with spending all this time at a fuel station?” he queried.
An Uber driver, Kilani Adewale, told our correspondent that he spent four hours on Sunday at a fuel station, but ended up buying from black marketers to enable him to get back home.
“I spent four hours in a fuel station in Maitama on Sunday, but when it was my turn, they said that the fuel had finished. I was forced to buy from a black marketer in front of the station so that I could drive my car home and also have some fuel to drive around in search of the product on Monday.
“I had spent almost the same number of hours today, but I am lucky that the station did not run out of the product before it got to my turn. I am already finding it difficult to feed my family these few days.
“If they want to increase the price, let them increase but let the product be available, instead of making us like this,” he lamented.
Meanwhile, an attempt to speak to the station manager proved abortive as the fuel attendants were hostile to correspondents.
“Why do you want to see him? He is not on site. You people are always looking for who to put in trouble. Tell those who sent you that you did not see us,” the fuel attendant said.
The situation is nearly the same in Kano State where motorists are queuing up in large numbers at filling stations, struggling to buy petrol that is now selling at over N1,000 per litre.
It was gathered that the queues have been witnessed since last Thursday in Kano and neighbouring Jigawa State, at the retail outlets of NNPCL that were selling the product at N617 per litre. But the situation, reports say, changed yesterday morning as the queues extended to other stations selling at higher rates.
In Kabuga on the Bayero University, Kano (BUK) Road, as well as Tarauni on Maiduguri Road, there were long queues. The situation was the same across major parts of the city as only a few stations had the product, a resident, Ibrahim Abubakar, said.
According to Abubakar, filling stations in the metropolis were charging as high as N1,000 as of yesterday morning.
He added that he bought the product over the weekend at prices ranging between N950 and N920 before the price skyrocketed later in the day.
A tricycle operator said he bought petrol at N1,030 yesterday morning at a filling station in the Tudun Yola area, he hiked his fare to N300 from N200 for a trip from Kabuga to Kano line motor park.
The operator, anonymously, said many of his colleagues had been buying fuel from black marketers at exorbitant prices, just to avoid the queues at filing attention.
Reporters who went around in the morning found out that while some filling stations were shut, others had long queues.
It was also discovered that some tricycle operators at the Aliko filling station on Maiduguri Road in the Kano metropolis blocked all entrances to the station after accusing fuel attendants of preferential treatment of car owners.
Meanwhile, In Dutse, the Jigawa State capital, only one of the two NNPC outlets was selling fuel. The NNPC outlet in the Fanisau area on the Kano Maiduguri highway has remained closed for weeks.
At the Dutse NNPC sales outlet, our correspondents witnessed angry motorists accusing the station managers of segregating the queues to favour government officials and other well-to-do customers.
Some buyers alleged that the NNPC station in Dutse often shut down claiming to have run out of the product only to reopen at midnight to sell to black marketers.
A car owner, Baba Habu, said the fuel queue in Dutse was caused by the NNPC hoarding the product.
“If the NNPC station at Fanisau and the one in Dutse can dispense fuel optimally, there won’t be queues and if two more NNPC stations are built in Dutse it will solve the problem of high prices and long queues,” Habu said.
Attempts to speak with NNPC outlet managers in Dutse to respond to the allegations against them but they were fruitless.
Ilorin, the Kwara State capital, is no better. Victims lamented the increase in transportation fares within the city, owing to the current fuel scarcity.
Some of them who spoke on Sunday said they now pay double the fare to get to their destinations.
Transportation fares have, actually increased doubly in the metropolis since Saturday due to fuel scarcity and its unavailability.
On the factors responsible for the scarcity and the way forward, the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, (IPMAN), said the scarcity would take not less than two weeks to ease.
According to the Public Relations Officer, Chinedu Ukadike, the product is not available in the country and has become a challenge to source it because most refineries in Europe are undergoing turnaround maintenance.
Ukadike also attributed the acute shortage in supply to importation bottlenecks as well as the slow pace of marketers’ licence renewal by the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA).
He disclosed that only 1,050 marketers out of 15,000 have had their licences renewed by NMDPRA.
Ukadike said, “The situation is that there is no product. Once there is a lack of supply or inadequate supply, what you will see is that scarcity and queues will emerge at filling stations.
“On the part of NNPCL, which is the sole supplier of petroleum products in Nigeria, they have attributed the challenge to logistics and vessel problems.
“Once there is a breach in the international supply chain, it will have an impact on domestic supply because we depend on imports. I also have it on good authority that most of the refineries in Europe are undergoing turnaround maintenance, so sourcing petroleum products has become a bit difficult.”
According to him, “The NNPC Group CEO has assured us that there will be improvement in the supply chain because their vessels are arriving. Once that is done, normalcy will return. This is because once the 30-day supply sufficiency is disrupted, it takes two to three months to restore it.
“We expect that by next week or so, NNPC should be able to restore supply and within another week, normalcy should return,” Ukadike said.
*We’ll soon get over it, officials say
Meanwhile, marketers have blamed the fresh scarcity of PMS on a supply challenge from the major oil supplier in the country, NNPC Limited.
The National President of the Petroleum Products Retail Outlets Owners Association of Nigeria (PETROAN), Billy Gillis-Harry, made this known yesterday on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief breakfast programme.
The fresh fuel scarcity has grounded many economic activities in states across the Federation as Nigerians queue up at filling stations nationwide.
While some motorists were lucky to get fuel at some retail outlets for between N700 and N,1200 per litre after hours of sweat and sweat, others weren’t so lucky as many retail outlets were shut, with their excuse being supply challenge.
The shortage of the premium product saw black marketers selling petrol for as high as N2,000 per litre in states.
Snake-like queues at filling stations in Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Kaduna, Sokoto, Kano, Benue, Sokoto, and other places have worsened the traffic situation in the states as the long queues spilled on major roads, hindering vehicular movement, just as thousands of people were stranded at bus stops with transport fares doubling the previous amounts.
Though many outlets owned by independent oil marketers remained shut, checks by our correspondent in Lagos showed that NNPC retail outlets sell petrol at N568 per litre but not many motorists could survive the unending queues and jostling for sometimes six hours to get the premium product.
Last Thursday, NNPC spokesman, Olufemi Soneye, said the “tightness in the supply of Premium Motor Spirit currently being experienced in some areas across the country is as a result of logistics issues and that they have been resolved”.
The NNPC also said the prices of petroleum products won’t change and urged Nigerians to avoid panic buying as there was sufficient product in the country.
However, PETROAN boss, Billy Gillis-Harry, said the supply challenge has not been resolved though he acknowledged efforts by NNPC to solve the problem.
Gillis-Harry said, “NNPC has its outlets that they also serve. So if they have some logistics issues that will possibly be what is internal to NNPC. But as for us, PETROAN members, we can tell Nigerians for real that if we have petroleum products delivered to us, supplied to us upon payment for those same products, we will supply them to Nigerians.
“I would like to correct Nigerians that we retail outlet owners or marketers as they generally call all of us is the reason for this. We do not have any reason not to serve the public and we are willing to serve the public.
”All that is required is for us to have petroleum products delivered to us from NNPC and we will make sure that our retail outlets are open, some of them are even open for 24 hours. The challenge of logistics is only relevant to the NNPC retail outlets.”
