A severe shortage of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), also known as petrol, has spread across the country, with fuel queues on a scale not seen in recent times, and the product selling for more than N1,000 per litre in some places.
The scarcity, which had been lingering in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) for over a month, has now spread to other parts of the country, including Lagos, Kaduna, Kano, Port Harcourt, Niger, Nasarawa, and several other states.
Many filling stations have shut down their operations due to the severe undersupply of PMS, while the few that are open are selling at exorbitant prices.
In Abuja, a 10-litre container of petrol sold for as high as N12,000 on the black market, while private filling station owners sold for between N700 and N1,050 per litre, depending on location.
The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) had said the shortages were caused by “distribution” challenges, but did not specify the cause of the current spike.
However, the president of Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), Abubakar Maigandi, blamed the situation on “panic buying”.
“There was protest for almost seven days and most of the depots were not loading. During the protest, we informed all our marketers to sell their products in 24 hours so that there will be no side effects in terms of the purchase of the petrol,” Maigandi said.
“Immediately they called off, then we rushed to where we were supposed to load this product and we have started loading. Some of the trucks are already on the way, but we are having some challenges.”
Maigandi also said that NNPCL had not really told them what the issue was, beyond the logistics claims.
In Lagos, the current petrol scarcity assumed an alarming dimension, with most of the major filling stations shut while a few that opened for business were flooded by long human and vehicular queues that stretched along major roads.
Some marketers, who spoke with This Day, blamed the endless scarcity on huge subsidy payments, despite persistent claim by President Bola Tinubu and his team that subsidy had been removed from the petrol marketing equation in Nigeria.
