Kachikwu ‘using Nigerians as experiment’

Tokunbo Korodo, Lagos zonal chairman of the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), says Ibe Kachikwu, minister of state for petroleum, is using Nigerians as experiment.

Blaming the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) for the fuel scarcity, Korodo told Channels Television that the corporation has refused to make fuel available to fuel depots.

“The minister is just using Nigerians as experiment and we don’t need that,” he said.

“The way I’m looking at it, the NNPC is the main cause of the fuel scarcity; other stakeholders are not complementing the efforts of the federal government while they claim they don’t have access to fuel.

“The federal government promised to make fuel available to them, why are they not giving it to them and sorting it out for Nigerians?

“The minister, being the policy maker, is entitled to his opinion. But with what I’ve seen so far today [Wednesday], the situation is not encouraging.”

But speaking with NAN in another interview, Korodo said NNPC had commenced massive pumping of petrol and loading of petroleum trucks.

“If NNPC can keep the tempo of the loading till weekend, more filling stations will have petrol and the queue of motorists at filling stations will reduce,” he said.

“The corporation should ensure that it keeps on pumping petrol to both major and independent marketers’ depots to reduce the scarcity.

“Going round some depots in Lagos, I observed that loading was going on and more filling stations are selling the product at the control price. Some filling stations that are selling between N130 and N150 will be forced to sell at control price when the market is flooded with petrol.”

Kachikwu has promised that the long queues in the petrol stations will disappear by April 7.