Baru: Worst of Fuel Crisis over, Monster of Scarcity Tamed

The Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Dr. Maikanti Baru, yesterday in Abuja said the worst times of the fuel crisis, which has plagued the nation in the last two weeks was over, saying the monster of fuel scarcity has been tamed eventually.

Baru, who made this submission while answering questions from journalists in the Presidential Villa after yesterday's Juma'at prayers, blamed the independent marketers for the needless fuel crisis which he said was triggered by a rumour that the pump price of petrol would be increased.

However, he said he was excited because normalcy was gradually returning to various parts of the country after fierce and running battles that NNPC and its subsidiaries had with oil marketers, pointing out that his earlier disclosure that there was enough fuel in the storage which can last for more than 30 days was correct after all.

According to him, the marketers, who were only bent on making life difficult for Nigerians during the Christmas, opted to hoard the product and divert it even outside the country.

He said the directive of the president to seal off petrol stations selling above the pump rice of N145 per litre and their hoarded petrol given out to motorists at no cost was effectively implemented.

"Fortunately, that rumour instigated a lot of marketers to be very greedy and they decided that their fellow citizens should not enjoy the Christmas holiday and new year with ease and decided to profiteer starting by hoarding and diversion of products.

"At the beginning, I did address the press, telling the world that we have sufficient products that will last us 30 days through the new year into January but because the marketers wanted to inflict harm and pains on fellow citizens, they decided to hoard products, divert them and in some cases even smuggle products out of the country.

“This has been tamed by the actions we took and I personally led the war around Abuja and other teams led the war in Lagos and other parts of the country. As of this morning (yesterday), I have gone round the Abuja metropolis and I have seen that the queues have reduced significantly to almost normal level and few motorists that I heard speaking on morning programmes concerning what I have seen, said they have not spent up to 30 minutes to fuel their car.