EditorialTHEWILL EDITORIAL: Fuel Scarcity: NNPC Singing Same Old Song

THEWILL EDITORIAL: Fuel Scarcity: NNPC Singing Same Old Song

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It may sound trite to ask if officials of the Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) listen to statements they make on the current fuel scarcity across the country.

Since the ongoing fuel scarcity started two weeks ago, officials of the company have been telling Nigerians that the problem is all about distribution and not supply.

A fortnight ago, the nation’s manager of oil, the mainstay of the country’s economy, assured Nigerians that it had sufficient supply of the product to last 34 days through the yuletide. But rather than abate, the situation worsened.

Then last Wednesday, the company again repeated the same worn cliché. The Chief Investment Officer, NNPC Upstream Management Services, Mr Bala Wunti, gave Nigerians another assurance that the fuel queues at petrol stations would vanish at the weekend. According to him, the bottlenecks created at the Apapa Wharf that frustrated the distribution of the product had been significantly reduced and all challenges with the upstream or downstream sector were effectively tackled.

Surprisingly, when the problem was going on, the Members of Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN) pleaded with negligible success with NNPC to make use of its members’ empty tank facilities located at strategic points in the country to fast track the distribution of Premium Motor Spirit. They were ignored, obviously for understandable reasons.

Both parties have had a face-off in the past over lingering issues of debt settlement and management, but under the current dire straits, common sense should have prevailed. Reason dictates that a reflection on the economic implications of the disruption of supply chain of a major product that runs the economy, should have inspired a sense of corporation between them.

Now, Nigerians, as has often happened in the past, are paying for this criminal negligence on the part of the NNPC.

Transport fares have gone up, food prices are skyrocketing and fuel cost, when available at petrol filling stations are far beyond the official N69 per litre for Lagos and N170 per litre for Abuja and other states where the price cap by the NNPC is now subject to the whims of the patrol station managers and fuel dispensers.

Youths carrying fuel jerry cans soliciting for patronage by hapless commercial drivers and private car owners are now a sore feature in cities like Lagos, the commercial nerve of the country.

Meanwhile, the oil markets are also threatening to raise prices, arguing that the landing cost for importing petrol no longer makes no economic sense. They contend that the 34-day supply stock promised by the NNPC is a ruse.

The multiplier effect of this dire situation on the already poor health of many Nigerians is better imagined.

It was no surprise on Thursday that the Directorate of State Services (DSS) issued a 48-hour ultimatum to the NNPC and the oil marketers to end the fuel scarcity across the country.

On this note, we call on the management of the NNPC to sit up, stop giving excuses and own up to their words and promises.

Improper pricing of petrol to smuggling of the product through our porous borders and lack of production capacity at the refineries were once given as the reasons for the same current fuel crisis. Nigerians are tired of such excuses. They want action and where that is lacking, a just sanction for any act of negligence.

We do not need to remind officials of the company of their new assignment, which is to run an efficient company that manages the country’s major revenue earner to the benefit and welfare of all Nigerians.

It also means that the old way of doing business, which made the NNPC a cash cow for the establishment alone is gone for good.

We thank the Lagos State Government for assisting the company to resolve the distribution bottlenecks at Apapa Wharf.

Let us hope, like Wunti promised last week, that the situation will be solved for all time and that Nigerians “are not going to have a difficult Yuletide whether it is with the upstream and downstream sector.” And if that promise fails, the DSS would wield the big stick.

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