As Nigerians continue to suffer from fuel scarcity, a non-governmental organization, the Muslim Media Watch Group of Nigeria, has called on the federal government to conduct a thorough investigation into why the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, stations, and many major marketers are finding it difficult to get fuel supply for sales despite being in charge of the commodity.
The group, in a statement signed jointly by its National Coordinator, Alhaji Ibrahim Abdullahi, and the National Secretary, Dr. Nasir Balogun, on Tuesday, lamented that scarcity has added to Nigerians’ suffering.
According to the statement, “reports from all over the country described as critical, the untold hardship on innocent citizens as a result of fuel scarcity, prompting the group to call on President Muhammadu Buhari to issue’matching orders’ to all stakeholders in the petroleum industry to rise to the challenge posed by fuel scarcity in order to reverse the ugly trend and reduce the hardship facing the citizens of this country.”
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The MMWG slammed the NNPC and the Ministry of Petroleum Resources for their lackadaisical stance on the issue, describing their roles in ensuring the commodity’s effective distribution throughout the country as “weak, inefficient, and ineffective.”
According to the group, “the current situation portrayed them as those who are insensitive to the plight of the suffering masses.”
It also condemned “the unruly and uncultured behavior of some petrol buyers in the country’s very few filling stations, such as road blockage by buyers without any arrangement by the security agencies to ensure orderliness and proper management of affairs, thereby worsening the hardship the people are facing.”
The essence of good governance is to maintain law and order as well as orderliness.
The current situation in which state governments act as if they are unconcerned about the dangerous trend of fuel scarcity is unacceptable because “prevention is better than cure.”
Security agencies such as the Police and Civil Defence Corps should have swung into action to maintain order, but nothing is happening as if there is no government in place anywhere in the federation.
The current situation in a few petrol stations, which allows hooligans, touts, and other undesirable elements to disrupt peaceful sales of the commodity, is highly condemnable. It is disgraceful that the NNPC, which promised that fuel would be available everywhere starting last week, has failed to fulfill its mandate in this regard and has made no effort to keep the public informed of its efforts to restore normalcy.
“The consequences of this neglect are unfathomable hardship for motorists, commuters, and indeed all citizens,” it stated.
The group also stated that the situation has resulted in an increase in the prices of goods and services, as well as fuel, particularly by independent marketers.