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Uche Usim, Abuja and Adewale Sanyaolu
Oil marketers failed to heed an earlier directive by the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) to crash petrol price from N145/litre to N140 from Wednesday, February 20-22, in an effort to support President Muhammadu Buhari’s re-election project.
Scores of filling stations visited in Abuja and Lagos on Wednesday and Thursday morning sold petrol at N145/litre with most of the fuel attendants saying they never received any instructions from their supervisors to adjust their meters to N140.
In Wuse area of Abuja, filling station managers spoken to by Daily Sun insisted they had to sell at N145 because the shortfall from the N5 reduction will result into billions of naira loss.
“Our profit margin is less than N5. If we now lose N5, you can imagine the loss. The government has not even paid us part of our subsidy claims and you now add this loss to it. Do you want us to close shop? They queried. We can’t crash petrol price like that because we’re businessmen. We can’t play politics with our business,” a station manager who claimed anonymity said.
Even across the South West states, investigations by Daily Sun across IPMAN-member retail outlets in Sango, Ogun State and Abule and Orile in Lagos revealed non-compliance by the members.
For instance at G&G Oil and Gas Limited on College Road, Ogba, Lagos, a litre of petrol was sold at N145 per litre. It was the same experience at Jonek Oil at Ligali bus stop, Ojo Road, Ajegunle. The situation was, however, different at Mubostic Filling station at Orile which sold at N150 per litre.
Meanwhile majority of the marketers who spoke to Daily Sun blasted the leadership of IPMAN for foisting on them, a directive they described as anti-business, dictatorial and not in the best interest of their business.
They also lamented that IPMAN has outlived its usefulness because the interest of members was no longer in anyway paramount to the national leadership.
“What value am I gaining from IPMAN that would warrant me to slash my product price by N5 per litre. How do I recoup the loss that will be incurred over the four-day period. This directive by IPMAN is not only unsustainable but inimical to business survival,” a marketer said.
“We have a Lagos Zone in IPMAN. There was no such directive from them. The Lagos zone represents us at the national level and I believe such directive should have been forwarded to us. But there was nothing of such,’’ she said. Some other marketers also claimed ignorance of the directive.
The National President of IPMAN, Chinedu Okoronkwo, had earlier in the week announced that his members will crash petrol price to enable voters travel freely to cast their votes after last Saturday’s last-minute postponement of the Presidential and National Assembly elections by Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
