On Tuesday, Mohammed Kuluwu, chairman of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), issued an order for all IPMAN members in the Borno State Chapter to resume normal business operations forthwith. Given the ongoing loss experienced by its members, the state chapter of IPMAN had previously instructed them to temporarily halt payments for petroleum products and other activities. Reports claim that the government and its agents coerced the members into selling petroleum products at predetermined rates.
All IPMAN members in the state may now reopen their stores and resume normal business operations following discussions with the appropriate authorities. While the suspension is warranted, all concerns related to it have been handled, according to Abdulkadir Mustapha, the state’s official representative for the organization. In a prior petition to the government on Monday, IPMAN requested further time to sell the petroleum products in stock before prices were reset to the standard rate of N195 per liter.
Distribution of petroleum has been impeded by concerning issues.
Joseph Akanni, vice chairman of IPMAN’s Western Zone, said that all members of the organization had been instructed to stop buying high-priced petroleum products now that the regulatory bodies have imposed the pump price of fuel at N195 per liter at all filling stations throughout the nation. Akanni, said that from now on IPMAN would exclusively buy from NNPC. Association members have also been encouraged to follow the Federal Government’s directive and refrain from buying items that can’t be resold at the approved prices.
Whereas others who have already made purchases from private depot owners have appealed to the relevant authority to delay adopting the official rate until they have finished selling it. This is against the backdrop of some members’ desire to depart. Recently, the distribution of petroleum products has been impeded by a few constant issues. This has made it difficult for Nigerians to purchase petroleum products at filling stations around the nation, resulting in long queues.
NNPC assured an increase in petroleum availability by next week.
Despite the government’s repeated assurances that there is an adequate supply of petroleum products, the fuel shortage persists. The vast majority of people have been spotted at accessible filling stations straining to pay the exorbitant prices for petrol. The Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) has also blamed the operations of cross-border smugglers for the country’s ongoing fuel shortage. Through spite of this, the agency insisted that there was “sufficiency” of gasoline in the nation.
To this end, President Muhammadu Buhari last month gave the green light to the formation of a 14-person coordinating committee to deal with the nation’s oil supply and distribution. The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) has been maintaining a daily average evacuation rate of 64.42 million litres (or a weekly total of 450.92 million litres) over the last month, according to a report. Meanwhile, on Tuesday, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited assured the public that there would be a significant increase in the availability of petroleum products across the nation beginning next week.
A warning has been issued against disrupting the nation’s petroleum supply.
At the same time, government representatives argue that the fuel shortages around the nation are the result of decades of degradation and depravity in the petroleum products supply chain. There have been reports that the Buhari government is doing all it can to fix the country’s petroleum distribution and supply problems at the same time. An outright warning has also been issued against efforts to disrupt the nation’s petroleum supply and distribution networks as security authorities’ attention is drawn to it as the general election approaches.
Related Link
Wikipedia: Website
