The current fuel scarcity, which started like the normal low-fuel circulation, occasionally witnessed by Nigerians, is biting harder by the day. The situation, which fluctuated a few times between mid-March, when the country was preparing for the presidential and the gubernatorial polls, has gone from bad to worse. While the Premium Motor Spirit, otherwise known as Petrol now sells for N200 or N300 in some states, residents in others states pay as high as N500.
The development, as expected, has taken its toll on cost of living, with transportation coming tops. DAILY POST learnt that in Oshodi, buses now charge N300 to Obalende, a trip that was N100 before now. Sango-Ota to Oshodi is also charged at N300, up from N100. Presently, Yaba to Ikeja is now N400, up from N150, while CMS to Ogba is 800, three times the old fare. Similarly, a journey from Oshodi to Ajah, which hitherto was N500, now costs N1500.
Sharing his experience, a male traveller on Sunday said that he booked a ticket for Monday morning from Jibowu, Lagos to Port-Harcourt for N15,000. “I was not too surprised since we are all aware of the situation on ground. Before now, PH (Port-Harcourt) is N5,000 but one is forced to pay higher because of this fuel scarcity.” “If not for the fact that the trip is important, I will not move an inch,” he said.
Apparently fed up with the suffering, some Nigerians are already calling for another round of Occupy Nigeria protest. Occupy Nigeria was a movement that began in Nigeria on Monday, 2 January 2012, after fuel subsidy removal by outgoing President Goodluck Jonathan. He made the announcement in his New Year message on Sunday, January 1, 2012. The protests, which took place across the country, brought Nigeria’s economy to its knees as all sectors were shut during the nine-day action.
The lingering fuel scarcity may just be a premise for another mass action as citizens continue to lament their fate. DailyPost correspondent, who queued up at different filling stations on Lagos Island for three consecutive days observed that many Nigerians in search of fuel would participate in any form of mass protest at this time.
A youth, who was part of a group discussion on state of the nation, said what he was expecting to hear or read is a message calling on Nigerians to take over the streets in protest of the fuel scarcity. “I won’t even think twice. I did in in 2012 and I’m ready to sit out for days again,” he said at Forte Oil filling state at Oniru in Victoria Island.
A middle-age man also expressed similar view at NNPC mega station in Ikoyi. “I don’t mind losing my job, this country is rubbish. Only mass protest and this time around a violent one will make our leaders do what is right,” he lamented.
The view is also being expressed by Nigerians in homes, offices, gatherings and on social media. FG insists on due process. Refusing to bow to what it described as “blackmail”, the federal government has told oil marketers that it would not pay unverified subsidy claims.
Minister of Finance, Okonjo-Iweala on Saturday in Abuja accused the marketers of submitting to government fraudulent payment claims to the tune of N159billion. According to her, “Marketers were asking for N159 billion for exchange rate differentials from the outstanding N200 billion. “There has been so much fraud and scam, so I have refused to sign for that money but have agreed that a committee be set up involving the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to verify marketers’ claims.”
“Marketers just want to make Nigerians suffer.”.
Insisting that the current fuel scarcity has nothing to do with paying the marketers, Okonjo-Iweala said, the marketers “are making a lot of money from black market activities.” The minister reiterated that she would not pay the N159 billion without verification and called on Nigerians to rise up against the blackmail of the oil dealers.
Continuing, she said, “I cannot say that the problem is due to not paying marketers, the process of paying marketers is always a rolling process and there has never been a time government reduced its financial obligation to marketers to zero. “In a year where so much effort has been made to pay marketers, including prioritizing their payment as subsidy claims in favour of other financial obligation like paying contractors, yet fuel scarcity still persists at this particular point in time suggests that something suspicious is happening,” she added.
Meanwhile, factional Deputy President of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), Mr Issa Aremu, has warned that workers may be forced to stay at home if government failed to address the problem as soon as possible. In a statement he issued on Sunday in Kaduna, Aremu noted that the perennial petrol scarcity in the country and the failure of the government to address the problem amounted to a declaration of war against the citizens by combined forces of the ruling elite and business class.
The NLC leader maintained that since the public servants were the worst hit by the situation, they would have no other option than to stay at home until the situation improved. He called on Nigerians to rise up and demand for explanations from the relevant government authorities on why a nation richly blessed with crude oil often experience scarcity of petrol.
Aremu, who said the current situation was conscious attempt to subject 170 million Nigerians to economic suicide, added that “Nigeria is the only country on earth which unacceptably and criminally denies its citizens basic sources of energy; fuel and electricity”. He charged Nigerians to stop agonizing and rise in unison “against this agony capitalism”.
However, how well NLC’s action will turn around the deadlock remains to be seen, as the body presently has an unresolved leadership tussle.
culled from DAILYPOST.NG
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