Fuel Scarcity: Petrol Sells At N250 Per Litre In Imo, Cross River

While Nigerians are cringing at the ever dwindling economy with the value of Nigeria at its lowest thereby causing so hardship for families.

It is even more worrisome that amid crisis of poverty and fear of what to eat in most Nigerian families, the worst fear is the hike in fuel price as every fuelling station is at liberty to sell at any amount.

In Imo State, it is either you join the long queues to buy at a price range of N180 per litre or you settle for prices between N225 and N250.

When NewsTrack Nigeria monitored the pms crisis, some families now barely find two square meals.

Speaking Mrs. Nnanyereugo, she said; ” we need government to solve this problem. I am a civil servant. Nobody has increased my salary but we are spending more these days.

“My children can’t even sleep at night. I have only come to buy three litres of fuel to on our generator by 12 mid night so that my children can sleep. You know we hardly have electricity at night and the weather is too hot. The children need to rest before leaving for school in the morning.

For Mr. Emeka Osuji, a commercial motorists, he said that it is only natural that there will be hike in transport fare because of how much they bought. “We buy at N225 per litre. Some fuelling stations even sell at N250. Except you go and join a long queues. To cover up for time wasted, you still have to make up by passing same to the commuters.

While commodities are getting out of reach of the poor masses, their sufferings have even increased as boarding a bus to work has become a project that comes with excruciating pains.

The commercial motorists have also become merciless as N50 is fast becoming one of the lost currencies in Nigeria just like coins, as motorists no longer accept N50 as a transport fare, except you are ready to engage in fisticuff.

Imo is not the only State that is experiencing such hard times, Cross River is also in the news…

Daily Post reports:

Many petrol stations in parts of Calabar and other major towns in Cross River State are selling fuel at the rates of N200 and N250 per litre as of Wednesday.

As a result, long queues were noticed in Calabar and other outskirts.

Findings at some fuel stations in Calabar South LGA showed that pump price was adjusted to read N200 while in Ikom and Ogoja, motorists bought fuel at over N250 per litre.

But at Kemsi Petroleum in the Atimbo area of Calabar Municipality, fuel was sold at N190 per litre with only about four pumps selling to the customers who were visibly panicky.

A senior attendant at the station said they now sell according to how they bought the products.

A number of favourite stations that dispense fuel regularly preferred to lock up their stations.

For instance, at Express Africana fuel station, the gates were locked.

The attendants said the product was not available.

Customers were seen struggling to be served first at one or two stations that still sold at the N165 approved pump price.

A taxi driver, Akpan Fidelis in the Mbukpa area of Calabar said he got information from his neighbours that there were queues at fuel stations forcing him to hurry out to buy so that he can do some business.

“I have heard rumours of fuel scarcity in the last few weeks in the news and so I was not surprised when they told me that the queues have resurfaced in Calabar”, he said.

Another driver, Mr Ade complained bitterly that as usual, the situation would cause untold hardship on residents of the city who are already weighed down by lots of challenges.

Chairman of Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), Cross River chapter, Robert Obi said there was no cause for alarm as the challenge was simply a supply gap.

He assured that more products have come into the country.

He adduced the reason to the contaminated products brought into the country three weeks ago from Belgium, adding that it has been withdrawn.

“In the course of sourcing for another product, that is why you see the supply gap. However, that challenge is being sorted out as products have started coming in, by tomorrow Feb. 24 at least, the issue will start to abate,” he said.

On the sharp increase of the product price, Obi maintained that in the last few days, private tank farms sold the product at over N180, which reason the retailers also pushed up their own price.

“When a marketer buys the product at N181 and by the time he adds the expenses to take the product to his station, it will amount to about N185, if you add N5 to sell at N190, I don’t think it is wrong.

“I had reported the matter to the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) who prefers to come to the fuel stations to harass marketers, that they should go to the depots which are the sources but nothing was achieved.

“When I engaged the leadership of the depots, they said the marine logistics charges were increased, so, they were building the additional cost in the price of the product,” he said.

– DailyPost