Fuel scarcity worsens, bites harder in FCT

Residents and motorists in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and its environ have continued to lament the hardship being experienced as scarcity of Premuim Motor Spirit (PMS), known as petrol worsened.

A correspondent of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) who monitored the filling stations on Friday reports that long queues of vehicles were seen at all the stations that have the petroleum product.

Those that have the product were dispensing at N195 per litre while the NNPC Limited Retail stations were dispensing N194 per litre.

A good number of the filling stations were seen without having the product.

In the City centre, NNPC Limited Mega station by Church Gate and NNPC Limited retail station at Zone 1, Wuse were seen with long queues of vehicles.

Conoil and TotalEnergies filling stations, opposite NNPC Limited Towers also had long queues of vehicles.

The situation is also the worse along Nyanya-Keffi high way, as many filling stations did not have petroleum product,
while along Lugbe, Airport road, queues were seen at Danmana, NIPCO, Shafa and AA Rano filling stations.

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Many motorist expressed dissatisfaction over the non availability of the product, adding that the situation was frustrating and demoralising as they normally stay over the next day to get fuel.

“I usually queue till 12 midnight and the next day to get fuel. If not, my taxi business will suffer a loss,” Mr Ismaila Jimoh said.

My Sadiq Yakubu said though he was on Coupon Queue, to be charged through his credit card but it had not been easy, calling on the Federal Government to hasten up with laudable decision to resolve it.

Mr Peter Okpe, Manager, TotalEnergies station who appealed to the government to find lasting solution to the crisis said though it always served motorists for 24 hours but its queues had become too long because enough product was not in circulation.

President Muhammadu Buhari recently approved the constitution of a 14-man Steering Committee on Petroleum Products Supply and Distribution management to find lasting solution to disruptions in the supply and distribution of petroleum products.

Other terms of reference of the committee are to ensure national strategic stock management, visibility on the NNPC Limited refineries rehabilitation programme and ensure end-end tracking of petroleum products, especial PMS to ascertain daily national consumption and eliminate smuggling.