Cross River: Fuel Sells Between N250 And N300 Per Litre

The fuel situation in Calabar in the past three weeks has been very bad. Long queues and black market sales that used to be the thing of the past resurfaced. Most major marketers did not have the product and the few ones with products had very long queue as they sold at controlled price of N87 per litre.

However the independent marketers sold at high prices of between N100 and N140 per litre, while the black market operators have a field day selling at N250 to N300 per litre.

Between Monday and Wednesday this week the fuel situation had improved tremendously as motorists could drive into the filling stations controlled by major marketers and buy at controlled prices.

On Thursday, the queues had started re-surfacing again and it is expected that the situation may go worse by weekend.

The fuel supply has been epileptic. 

Sources in the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) said that the continuous retention of the fuel subsidy was not in the interest of the nation and the people.

He argued that the importers of fuel into the various tank farms in Calabar and other parts of the country are not honest with Nigerians.

“There is nothing like subsidy because the importers get the subsidy from federal government yet sale at high price to independent marketers who are forced to sale above the stipulated pump price to consumers.

“Tank farms are scattered everywhere here in Calabar and I believe it is because of the benefits they are getting from the subsidy at the detriment of the people. The Federal Government should not waste time keeping oil subsidy. The beneficiaries are the so called importers and not the people”.

One of the commuters interviewed on the fuel crisis and State Secretary of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Mr. Nsa Gill said, “for me it sad and disturbing because it seems that most of the operators do not have the interest of common Nigerians.

The reasons given are such that they are just struggling for their personal benefits. They are just adding to the high expectations of Nigerians on the incoming government to address the problem.

“This makes the marketers and operators to always hold ordinary Nigerians to ransom. Our only hope now is that the incoming government will come and do something definite on the problem since the outgoing government seems have been held to ransom and were unable to take the necessary steps that should have been taken.