From Femi Mustapha, in Kaduna
The group under the umbrella of Coalition for Civil Society Organisations said it has confirmed the availability of petroleum products at the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) and asked motorists to avoid panic buying.
Recall that many filling stations across the country have been witnessing long queues due to scarcity of Premium Motor Spirit, PMS supply.
But the Coalition of the CSOs in its reaction to the development, said it has confirmed the availability of products from the NNPCL management, which was caused by logistics issues that were later resolved.
The Coalition of Civil Society Organisations which disclosed this in a press statement made available to journalists in Kaduna said now that NNPC attributed the logistics problem as the major cause of the queues, there should be no need for any tension.
In the statement signed by Comrade Abdullahi Ibrahim Gimba, the CSOs, therefore appealed to motorists to be patient, because NNPCL as the sole importer of petrol has enough products.
While commending the Group Chief Executive Officer of NNPCL, Mal. Mele Kyari for the swift efforts to address the logistics problem and measures taken so far to revive the national oil company and resume full production, the CSOs described as unfortunate, the situation, where the black marketers capitalised on the glitch to exploit motorists and other residents that jostled to buy at prices ranging between N1000 and N1200 per litre.
“It is unhealthy that this happened when many Nigerians are anticipating a crash in prices of PMS. The idea of an increase in the cost of the product to an average of N700/litre at stations owned by independent marketers during this critical period of hardship is unacceptable,” it said.
The statement further reads: “We read the reaction of NNPCL on the fuel scarcity problem via the Press Statement issued by Chief Corporate Communications Officer, NNPC, Olufemi Soneye, who also confirmed that the scarcity was due to issues around logistics that have been resolved.
” Having carefully read the clarifications made on the tightness in the supply of petrol currently being experienced in some areas across the country, we agree that it shouldn’t stir up tension that will take us back to the days of recurring long queues at filling stations.
” We are not unaware that the queues for petrol grew worse in Abuja and neighbouring Nasarawa and Niger states recently, but the good news is that NNPCL has resolved the issues.
” We are ready to draft our Monitoring and evaluation unit to help the federal government to bring sanity to the oil sector.”
