Fuel stations shut as NUPENG suspends petrol distribution to Badagry

Some fuel stations in Badagry have been shut after the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers of Nigeria (NUPENG) suspended petrol distribution to the area.

Tayo Aboyeji, chairman of the south-west chapter of the union, told NAN on Saturday that the suspension was due to harassment of its members by men of the customs and the army in the area.

The chairman said some customs officers arrested a tanker driver who missed its way in Badagry and seized his truck.

He said the officers were of the federal operations unit (FOU) Zone ‘A’ in Ikeja.

“A tanker driver from Port Harcourt was sent to Badagry to deliver petroleum to a station, unfortunately, he missed his way and while asking for direction, the tanker driver was arrested by the men of joint border patrol,” NAN quoted him to have said.

“The tanker was taken to FOU in Ikeja. I wrote to the controller on the issue and met DC enforcement on the matter and I was directed to the officer in charge of legal issues in the same office.

“OC legal told me that he had not received the file from joint patrol operation office and promised to call me later.

“But surprisingly, our enforcement unit in Agbara stopped a tanker to check his paper to find out if its delivery documents were intact, but there were errors in his documents.”

Aboyeji said the NUPENG enforcement team thought it was a stolen product, and that they did not know that it was a product under investigation that was sold to a buyer.

“Thinking that it was a stolen product, they drove it to Area K police command in Morogbo. I wrote a petition to the Lagos state commissioner of police as regard to the incident,” he said.

“Surprisingly, soldiers under the drilling exercise came to police station beat my members and forcefully drove away from the tanker with its contents.

“We later heard that the tanker was used to remove the petroleum of a filling station in Badagry that had been sealed since February 1.

“Both the products and the tanker have not been found, this is not done in a civilized society, a product under investigation to be sold out just like that.

According to him, members have been directed to stop distribution of petroleum to Badagry until justice is done.

He said NUPENG will be forced to extend the suspension to the whole of Lagos if nothing is done to correct the injustice meted out to its members.