Two weeks ago when queues resurfaced at filling stations in parts of the country, particularly in Lagos and Abuja, the NNPC came out to explain why. It said there was a little hitch with a particular ship discharging the freshly imported fuel at the port at the given time but gave a cheering news that the hitch had been resolved and that, with immediate release of 250 trucks of fuel to Lagos, like it did to other parts of the country, the queues on the Lagos axis would be quenched in no time. That was the news on that weekend.
By Monday next to that weekend, independent marketers, whose main job has been to capitalize on any negative news of little hitches in the oil sector to hoard products, already sealed up their dispensing stations and this time around, I knew that they truly did not have fuel. And I got to know that from the fact that vehicles were scarce on the roads early in the morning of that Monday, using Lagos as a case study.
However, while I was going out along Alagbado-Ikeja-Oshodi road, I observed that although no single independent marketer opened shop but all the major marketers like Total, FO, MRS, Mobil, Oando, Conoil and, of course, the government’s NNPC were selling. More observably, by the time I returned to that same route in the mid-day, there were already so many vehicles on the road that traffic jams were visible. How did that happen? It was so because NNPC, and those major marketers: Total, FO, MRS, Mobil, Oando, Conoil sold to the last of the litres in their underground tanks and it was wonderful experience.
What that means is this, without the independent marketers, Nigerians can actually get fuel at ease without hitches. What it also means is that the government can now leverage on that experimented experience in ensuring that the fuel it imports by the NNPC should be distributed between among only the NNPC mega stations, other dispensing stations with NNPC franchise and major marketers across the country. This is because, with the NNPC and major marketers selling to their fullest in the last two weeks, there has been no hoarding of fuel, no situation of hike in pump price of the product, no black marketers selling in kegs at exorbitant prices and also in the last two weeks, there has been no situation whereby vehicles are shut out at filling stations deprived from getting access to buying fuel.
The experimented experience in the last two weeks, and I am sure the government and NNPC may not have taken note of this, shows that Nigerians can do without the independent marketers because if, for instance, the 250 trucks the NNPC released to Lagos and its environs in the last two weeks had gone into the hands of independent marketers, they would not sell to motorists the way NNPC and major marketers sold and have continued to sell, which has now eased completely the availability of fuel to Nigerians. But rather, they would prefer to hoard, divert the products and hike the price of the little they have in tanks through mid-night sales only.
After all, those independent marketers had told us stories of how inadequate supply of product to them by the NNPC was responsible for the hardship and artificial fuel scarcity that the nation experienced during the last yuletide and insistently maintained that NNPC and the government lied for saying that they had enough fuel.
What they failed to explain to us as Nigerian people was how vehicles were more on the roads than the usual even while they continued to lock their filling stations at motorists during the day only for Nigerians to behold the irony in the traffic jams all over the place resulting from more vehicles on the roads and black marketers selling along road sides. Were those vehicles plying the roads on water? Those black marketers selling fuel exorbitantly along road sides – definitely they didn’t buy from major marketers neither from NNPC – where did they get their fuel from if not from the members of the independent marketers association?
These questions remain unanswered by the independent marketers until the latest method whereby only NNPC and major marketers are seen to be the only ones selling and who are selling with spirit of patriotism and concern for the good of humanity. It is not as if some of the independent marketers do not still have fuel, they do, but Nigerians are now wiser because they have now seen what the government was talking about in the character of the independent marketers and so, they rather prefer to now patronize either of NNPC or major marketers: Total, FO, MRS, Mobil, Oando, Conoil, than patronize any of the stations owned by individual without franchise of either NNPC or major marketer and they are now good for it as situation are now eased with Nigerians going about their businesses daily without stress.
Of note among the independent marketers are Bovas and Matrix filling stations. These filling stations are the members of independent marketers association who are making life easy for motorists and people in Ondo State currently. Particularly in Akure, the state capital, all independent marketers have refused to sell fuel at normal rate and I gathered that it is associational as chairman of the independent marketers union in Akure not only sell his own fuel for N200 per litre but also commands other members to follow suit. Bovas and Matrix, I gathered, however refused to obey his command as they remain the only independently owned filling stations in Akure who not only sell at normal price but also sell to the last of their litres in the underground tanks and with correct, undistorted pump meter.
On the last note, it is myopic, wicked and unpatriotic that Nigerians, who are allowed to participate in making essential commodity available to the masses of the Nigerian people with intention that they too will be empowered making their living from doing so, are now the ones forming themselves into an association to ensure that they swindle the people simply because they know that, being impatient people, the vulnerable people who the buyers are will always want to buy even if they call their pump price N500. That is evil!
And since the police, DSS, Civil Defence and even the DPR are not really giving full, effective enforcement to the sealing of the erring filling stations and prosecution of their owners, the government should leverage on the current experimented distribution experience by ensuring that, pending the time all the nation’s refineries will be operating in full force and fuel importation rescinded, fuel or diesel or kerosene that it imports should be made available only to the NNPC and major marketers and leave the independent marketers to sell only the fuel they import by themselves. They should, by so doing, engage in serious publicity to keep Nigerians informed of the situation so that they will know that whoever goes to buy fuel where pump price is N200 should know that he is on his own.
*Adefaka is Lagos-based media practitioner.
