The Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, came hard on those causing trouble with fuel scarcity in the country during the Yuletide period describing their acts as shameful.
“It’s such a shame that Christmas has been, to some extent, with this sort of discomfort. This is deeply regretted.
“And l know that, despite the resilience and strength of people in Lagos and the Nigerian people, we would see ourselves through this and will enjoy our Christmas and have a great New Year,” Osinbajo said.
Osinbajo said this during an unexpected stopover to Oando Filling Station at Lekki area of Lagos State on Christmas Eve.
A statement by the Vice President’s media aide, Mr Laolu Akande, on Monday disclosed that Osinbajo also stopped at Hayden Petrol Station on the Island.
According to the Vice President, the Buhari administration is doing everything possible to quickly resolve the fuel shortages experienced by Nigerians.
The Vice President noted that the Federal Government was moving quickly to solve the fuel crisis and reduce the difficulties encountered by Nigerians.
“We are trying to move as quickly as we can. Obviously, people have gone through a lot of pain and anguish in the past few days, and that is deeply regretted.
“We were trying to do what we can to move as quickly as possible and there are certainly enough products to be able to solve the problem.
“We will be able to solve the problem; the short period of scarcity is quite a bit of burden, but we know that so long as products are enough and the trucks coming out and feeding the stations, this will be over very soon,’’ he added.
Osinbajo stated that he was going around with the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr Ibe Kachikwu, to ensure that the trucks were being loaded from all the depots.
He stated that the team was also looking at the filling stations to see that things were moving on very well.
“The GMD of the NNPC is also working in Abuja to see that things are moving quickly and we are moving around the country.
“So we expect that it will be resolved very quickly,” Osinbajo said.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that fuel scarcity during festive periods is a recurrent feature in Nigeria, although it disappeared in the last two years.
The scarcity is said to be caused by greedy marketers who tried to take undue advantage of the high inter-state movements during the season.
In some states a litre of fuel rose to between N200 and N300 or above per litre as against the official pump price of N145. (NAN)
