Fuel scarcity cripples in Abuja, Kaduna, Niger, Nasarawa; motorists spend nights on the queue

Long queues are back in various filling stations across Abuja metropolis and neighbouring states of Kaduna, Niger, and Nasarawa as fuel scarcity that had eased off recently resurfaces.

Many independent filling stations in the aforementioned states were shut on Wednesday for lack of fuel to dispense, while the few major oil marketers and mega filling stations belonging to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation that dispensed the commodity had to contend with long queues of desperate motorists.

The NNPC, however, announced on Wednesday that it had stepped up the arrest and prosecution of errant marketers and fuel hawkers across the country.

According to Deji Abu, a motorist “People are following media reports and as soon as they hear there’s fuel scarcity in Abuja or Lagos, they rush to buy in panic even when they have no use for the fuel,” he said.

The corporation said its special task force on filling stations’ monitoring had made a series of arrests, including two filling station managers, who diverted 66,000 litres of petrol, and six illegal hawkers of the product in Abuja.

It stated that the managers of Azman filling stations in Nyanya and Kuje, suburbs of Abuja, were arrested after close monitoring by the team for diverting trucks of petrol meant for their stations to unknown destinations.

The corporation’s spokesperson, Ndu Ughamadu, said in a statement that the culprits had been handed over to the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps for prosecution.

He stated, “In addition to prosecution, the filling stations would pay N250 fine for each litre of petrol diverted.”