The scarcity of Premium Motor Spirit, popularly called petrol, has again returned to Abuja, Nasarawa, Niger, Kaduna and other states, causing massive queues at the few filling stations that dispensed the product in the affected areas.
In providing an explanation for the resurgent fuel scarcity, oil marketers said the commodity had been difficult to access, and that many of their trucks had been in queues at depots since October last year.
But the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited blamed the massive queues on restrictions in businesses and movement, to allow for the conduct of the presidential and National Assembly elections.
Our correspondent observed that the queues in Abuja and neighbouring states started building up since last Friday.
It became alarming on Sunday, as many filling stations, both those belonging to independent and major marketers, ran out of products to dispense.
From Zuba in Niger State, to Mararaba in Nasarawa State, as well as in the Federal Capital Territory, most retailers of petrol did not dispense the commodity. They locked up their stations, a development that piled pressure on the few outlets that sold PMS on Sunday.
At the Salbas, Nipco and NNPCL mega stations on the Kubwa-Zuba Expressway, for instance, motorists formed queues that stretched several kilometres while waiting to buy petrol.
Oil marketers said they were currently finding it tough to get products to dispense, which was why private depots were selling above the approved price stipulated by the government.
“The question now is, are there even products? Are marketers seeing the products to buy, before talking about dispensing it to consumers? The truth is that we are not seeing the product,” the President, Petroleum Retail Outlet Owners Association of Nigeria, Billy Gillis-Harry, told our correspondent.
He added, “Some of us who paid for products since October, have not been able to load till now, and the cost around this is increasing every day. So by the time they load it, you can imagine the cost burden on the marketers.”
When told that the NNPCL recently announced that it had enough products to keep the country wet till March 2023, Gillis-Harry replied, “Has NNPCL ever told you that it doesn’t have enough products?”
