Anguish as marketers adjust petrol pump price to N300 per litre in Oyo

Commercial motorists and motorcyclists in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, have continued to groan as scarcity of petrol bites harder. It was observed that long queues surfaced in most petrol stations selling at N190 per litre.

Some of the petrol stations selling the product shut their gates against buyers, with the independent marketers adjusting their prices to N300 per litre against the previous pump price of between N195 and N270.

The Guardian observed that some of the few stations that belonged to major marketers have also adjusted their pump price to N190 against the previous pump price of N180.

Oyo State Chairman of the association, Alhaji Bukola Mutiu, who spoke with journalists at the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) Headquarters in Ibadan, linked the ongoing fuel scarcity across the state to high cost of diesel as well as the inability of Oyo State-based petroleum marketers to load fuel directly from Ibadan depot.

“Total deregulation remains the best solution to ending fuel scarcity.

“The deregulation of the downstream sector remains the only potent and lasting solution,” he said.

“But the cost implication of the policy will make the price of petrol too expensive for Nigerians, as deregulation will shift the burden from the government to users of the product,” Mutiu said.