Anxiety in Abuja as petrol queues resurface

Queues for petrol have resurfaced in the federal capital territory (FCT) causing anxiety and hardship for residents trying to get the product.

The scarcity of petrol is said to be caused by the refusal of marketers to load the product from the depots over an “ambiguous” price template.

TheCable observed that many of the petrol stations in the nation’s capital were not open for business, while a few others selling the product had people waiting in lines in the scorching sun.

Dan Oil was among the few petrol stations selling the product apart from from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) stations.

Speaking with TheCable on Sunday, Abdulmalik Abubakar, a resident of the FCT, said he spent over an hour struggling to purchase petrol in Gwarinpa.

“I spent one hour and about 30 minutes trying to buy fuel at Rain Oil in Gwarinpa. I’m tired, it is really frustrating,” Abubakar said.

The federal government’s policy of selling crude oil meant for local consumption at international price has made the landing cost of petrol higher than the regulated pump price. Nigeria imports petrol.

This is the reason subsidy, now purportedly abolished, was introduced.

Previously, crude oil meant for local consumption was sold to the NNPC at a subsidised cost and this made the landing cost of petrol lower.

The country’s refineries are comatose, hence the inability to refine crude oil for local consumption.

Editor’s note: The picture in this report is a file photo.