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By Adewale Sanyaolu
The current fuel scarcity may not abate soon as the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria(IPMAN) have threatened to boycot depots over unfair practices.
Chairman, Lagos Satellite Depot, Ejigbo, Lagos,Mr. Akin Akinrinade, lamented that fuel marketers should be given a level playing field.
This was even as the association issued a seven-day ultimatum to the federal government or be ready to face the consequences
The threat follows concerns that the government, through the Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), has not ensured balance among fuel marketers in the country, an allegation that is believed to have worsened the lingering petrol scarcity rocking the country over the past eight months.
Akinrinade, while issuing the ultimatum, regretted that given the pact it has with the NNPC, it is the responsibility of the Company to deliver petrol at depots at government approved price for its members.
He lamented that the failure of NNPC to keep this pact has forced IPMAN members to buy the product from private depots at higher ex-depot price.
He added that consultations are ongoing for the Association to take a position if the NNPC does not make arrangement for IPMAN members to load petrol at government approved price of N148.17 per litre within the next seven days.
Akinrinade revealed that the nation has been fed with different stories bordering on mother and daughter vessels and associated cost and the dwindling value of the Naira in the black market as being responsible for the current scarcity and sudden hike in the price of the product. However, IPMAN said, in spite of this “Mother and Daughter” vessel story, a multi-price layer of petrol stares the nation in the face, thereby putting a question mark to the veracity of the claim.
“How do you explain the fact that major marketers and the NNPC retail outlets sell petrol at N170/litre and N169/litre at their stations, respectively, and still make profit? They get their supplies from the same mother vessels brought into the Nigerian waters by NNPC Limited.
Do they not use daughter vessels? Why is it impossible for the private depots to sell to IPMAN members at regulated price since they get their supplies from the same source as major marketers? Nobody seems to be interrogating this obvious anomaly,” he said.
Flanked by other executive members of the Association, Akinrinade was categorical that his members have gotten to a point where they may boycott the depots until the NNPC thinks it fit to arrange depots for them to load petrol at government approved price.
Buttressing the position of the Association, the Secretary, Lagos Satellite Depot Branch, IPMAN, Akeem Balogun, regretted that the authorities do not see IPMAN members as serious stakeholders in the petroleum distribution network, irrespective of the fact that the Association controls over 70 percent of the outlets that serve majority of Nigerians, hence the neglect.
“We are the pawn on the chessboard of NNPC. The authorities should tell Nigerians, how it is possible for the major marketers to sell petrol at a pump price of N170/litre and the private depot- who are middlemen, sell to IPMAN members at N217/litre ex-depot, when it is the NNPC that supplies both of them major marketers and private depots at same price of N113 per litre,” Balogun sir.
From what is playing out, Balogun further argued, the only ineluctable conclusion is that the private depot owners, in connivance with the authorities in charge of distribution of petrol, are playing games with our collective destinies. According to him, the simple fact that petrol is being subsidised by the Federal Government, makes whoever has custody of it to do in trust for Nigerians and not to take advantage to profiteer from it because Nigerians own the fund being used to subsidise the product.
Akinrinade disclosed that the country has found itself in this dire situation because the NNPC depots across the country are not working. These non-functional depots, he said, has left IPMAN members orphaned since the beginning of the year. He regrets that while arrangements were made for major marketers to load at their various depots and at times at the private depots, no such arrangement was made for IPMAN members.
“IPMAN members control more than 80 percent of the filling stations across Nigeria. Any distribution arrangement that excludes IPMAN members is bound to fail. The only immediate solution to the current quagmire is to bring IPMAN back into distribution system. A through-put arrangement with some private depots to warehouse petrol for loading by IPMAN members at government regulated price. It is pertinent to let Nigerians know that IPMAN members are the first victims of this discriminating distribution system of NNPC and until this warped arrangement is corrected, the scarcity may persist,” he warned, adding that the authorities in-charge, rather than positively address the situation and proffer solutions, have been full of excuses and no effort has been made at ameliorating the suffering of Nigerians who have had to go through excruciating pain to fuel their vehicles because some people refuse to perform their duties as expected of them.
