By Nana Musa
Motorists in Abuja have continued to experience hardship following the scarcity of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), also known as petrol.
Many of the motorists said they wake up as early as 4 a.m. to queue at fueling stations for the product, adding that they could not afford to buy from the black market.
The motorists blamed some of the fueling stations for the scarcity, saying that they do not sell during the daytime but rather preferred to sell to black marketers at night.
As a result, the fueling stations claim not to have fuel during the day.
A News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) checks round retail outlets at Maitama, Wuse, Gwarimpa, Wuye and Kubwa expressways revealed that the queues were getting longer by the day.
Alhaji Mamudu Aliyu, said that the hardship was biting harder, and called on the Federal Government to find a lasting solution to the scarcity.
“The scarcity is getting to a month and nothing has been done, at times it looks like it is getting better and the next day it gets worse.”
According to Aliyu, some fueling stations only sell to black marketers at night.
“The oil regulating bodies are not taking the scarcity seriously, they do not check the activities of the fueling stations.
A taxi driver, Malam Umar Ibrahim, told NAN that he had been at the petrol station for more than four hours, adding “I bought black market yesterday and I did not make any profit.
“There is fuel on ground but the oil marketers are hoarding it because they want the government to increase the price for them to make more money,” he said.
However, some motorists said the scarcity was a ploy by the authorities to remove petroleum subsidy.
According to them, Nigerians will continue to experience scarcity if subsidy is not removed.
“We will continue to experience fuel scarcity until subsidy is removed, I feel they want to increase the pump price of fuel without the citizens noticing,’’ Mr Saka Mohammed, a civil servant said.
He said some fuel stations only sold a maximum of N5,000 petrol to each buyer who may have spent over ten hours on the queue at a time.
Mohammed also said that the pump price had been increased from N165 to N170 per litre in some fueling stations.
Muhammad urged the government to take necessary measures to curb the hardship as the current situation had affected the nation’s economy in general.
“The prices of food, transportation and many other services have seriously gone up,” he said.
Another motorist Mr Ejike Emeka said the fuel scarcity may be as a result of mounting tension between Russia and Ukraine.
“Some of us are of the view that Nigeria is also affected by the crisis between the two countries since we are importing the product.
“There is no free passage of oil vessels as a result of the war.”
Emeka said that had the country’s refineries been working, things would have been easier.
He urged the government to take advantage of the current problems and fix one of its refineries as it would help improve the economy. (NAN)
