IPMAN reveals why queues are back

Nigerians queuing up to buy fuel

The Independent Petroleum Marketers of Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) Monday blamed fresh nationwide fuel scarcity on unavailability of petrol for the marketers to load from the petrol depots.

Its Vice President, Alhaji Abubakar Dankigari, who spoke to The Nation on telephone Monday, added that members of the association have 8,000 tickets pending that it has not been able to load.
He said over the past few weeks, private depots owners have been selling petrol at a price higher than the official N77 per litre to marketers, lamenting that the depots have all goen dry.
Meanwhile, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr Ibe Kachikwu, has warned depot owners against selling petrol above the approved ex-depot price of N77 per litre.

In a statement, its Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Mr. Ohi Alegbe on Monday said the warning came against the backdrop of repeated complaints by marketers of sharp practices at the depots.
The statement quoted the minister as warning that depot owners found to be involved in selling products above the approved ex-depot prices would be severely sanctioned.
Dankigari blamed fuel scarcity on the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) that is responsible for the importation of 78 per cent of the product to the country.

He said: “The issue is that even where we are loading, there is no product. We already have more than 8,000 tickets but we have not been able to load.
“Even the private depots that used to sell the products at a higher rate no longer have the product to sell. So, that is the reason why you have been seeing those queues. The NNPC is only agency of government responsible for bringing the products into the country.”

IPMAN had in the penultimate week raised the alarm over the imminence of another fresh round of fuel scarcity as private depot owners were selling petrol for N97 per litre to marketers. Last week, the association further cried out that the depot owners had increased the price to N102 instead of N77 per litre. This, according to Dakingari, posed a great barrier to the marketers who avoided purchasing a product for N102 per litre and selling N86.50 per litre.