Fuel scarcity will be over in the next two days – Kachikwu
Ibe Kachikwu, the minister of state for petroleum resources, has joined President Muhammadu Buhari in apologising to Nigerians for the continuous fuel crisis in the country and promised that it will end within the next two days. Speaking during his tour of petrol stations in Abuja yesterday, Mr Kachikwu emphasized that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has increased supply of the petrol products countrywide and up to 300 truckloads of fuel are provided to Abuja daily.
The minister said: “We have enough coming in. Obviously the two days of strike hit us very badly but we are flooding in, getting an average of 300 trucks a day into Abuja. It’s going to take a bit of while for the queues to finish but we are hoping that between the next one-two days we should have the queues all disappear because we are continuing to pump in, while a lot of the stations are open 24 hours a day. I apologise to Nigerians for all the pains. Nobody wants to see people spend two hours on the fuel queue.
Talks had begun with the CBN to help major oil marketers in Nigeria access foreign exchange to import petrol into the country. We are doing everything we can. NNPC is taking the whole nation on its shoulders while majors are really not bringing in product. But we are working long term solutions to majors to now begin to go back to importation lane and be able to service their own outlets rather than us servicing our outlets, independents, majors and servicing everybody; its a lot of wear and tear on our capabilities as a status. Long term obviously we have got to systemically look at how do you prepare this nation in circumstances where there are emergencies to be able to respond. We are obviously not getting that as well as we should.”
It would be recalled that only a day ago the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), in the person of its south-west chairman, Tokunbo Korodo, said the current fuel scarcity in the country might continue till the end of this month and even get worse. Currently, motorists all over the country are facing massive queues at filling stations, while pedestrians are fighting the same problem at public transport stops. The situation has been aggravated by frequent power shortages that were attributed by federal government to gas failure as well as sabotage and vandalization of the power infrastructure.
