Mobile petrol retailers popularly known as ‘black marketers’, have taken advantage of the looming fuel scarcity in the country to flood the highways with kegs of expensive petrol.
Going round the major busy roads of the Federal Capital Territory, Heritage Times gathered that a litre of petrol as at Monday morning, sold for N400, and N4000 for a 10 litre keg respectively.
On a visit to an NNPC Mega Filling Station along Arab Road in Kubwa on Sunday night, Heritage Times also gathered that both car owners and jerry can-wielding customers could not buy fuel of more N500 each.
The management said it decided to sell petrol of not more than N500 to each customer to enable the product go round, as it was getting out of stock.
Further findings on Monday morning also revealed that transport fares within the nation’s capital had risen by at least 50 percent.
At the popular Nicon Junction Park, Abuja, taxi drivers had begun carrying four passengers in their back seat, as against the previous maximum number of three in line with Covid-19 safety guidelines.
“Is it not better for us to load four at the back instead of carrying three and increasing the price,” a taxi driver said.
Passengers, especially the working class, were mostly left stranded at major bus stops, as commercial vehicles were scarcely seen on the roads.
The Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, IPMAN, had on Sunday advised Nigerians to stop panic buying of petrol.
Alhaji Suleiman Yakubu, IPMAN’s National Public Relations Officer who gave the advice while speaking with journalists in Abuja, decried the panic purchases and long queues witnessed in various filling stations across the nation’s capital.
He however assured that normal supply of petroleum products would soon be restored since loading have commenced at various deports.
“We want to assure the buyers that government and marketers are doing everything possible to ensure that the products are available in every filling station within a few days starting from today,” the IPMAN spokesman said.
