The incessant fuel scarcity usually witnessed during the yuletide in Nigeria has been described as a means of hand twisting the government into taking certain decisions, and an attempt to sabotage government effort.
Humphrey Erumaka, the general overseer of Wordbase Assembly, Okota, made this assertion at a recent press conference held at the church auditorium on the forthcoming annual Festival of Power and Prayer Crusade schedule for January 7 to 21, in Lagos.
Erumaka posits that, “For me, I consider the recent fuel scarcity as an act of both external and internal sabotage; even those who are going on strike now should have a better time for going on strike than during Christmas.”
According to Erumaka, the government should come strong in handling the situation, as he sees no reason why there should always be a fuel scarcity during Christmas. “I feel some of the strike at Christmas is a form of hand twisting so that whatever we ask because of the pressure of the season must be given to us; and most government will not like to be hand twisted,” Erumaka says.
The presiding bishop of Wordbase Assembly however thinks some of the issues that led to the current fuel scarcity could have been settled long before the yuletide to make room for smooth celebration at Christmas.
“Whatever anybody is struggling for should have due respect for God, that is the way I looked at it. I had expected the people on strike to shift it so that Christmas celebration should go smoothly,” he says.
Speaking further on the government attempt at withdrawing $1 billion from the Excess Crude Account (ECA), he opines that the government must take an holistic approach in tackling the insecurity situation in the country rather than the present approach of trying to focus on the Northeast.
“I support the view that such huge amount to fight a situation that has been declared defeated is an aberration, and the Boko Haram issue is not only happening in the Northeast. If nothing is done to arrest the situation of the Fulani herdsmen rampaging across the country – the herdsmen have killed more people in the Southeast/Southwest than Boko Haram in the Northeast, so security generally should be addressed, not one part of the country,” he posits.
According to Erumaka, the lack of a proper and standardised costing system in Nigeria is an avenue for corruption that allows for huge amount of money to be budgeted for capital projects with little or no corresponding impact on the people.
“We are looking at N360 billion, I mean the longest bridge in China was constructed with just a little over $1 billion, while the best cancer hospital in Chicago cost about $140 million. So, when you talk about $1 billion, it can change this country to a large extent. The state of security in Nigeria has more to do with willpower than spending money. It is easier to spend money than to win a war,” he concludes.
Meanwhile, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has expressed empathy and strong solidarity with members of the public over the lingering challenge in accessing petroleum products across the country just as it reeled out multiple measures to end the unfortunate situation before the end of the year.
This was disclosed on Sunday in a statement signed by the group general manager group public affairs division of the Corporation, Ndu Ughamadu, which stated that group managing director of the Corporation, Maikanti Baru, made this known during a media briefing and follow-up tour of some fuel stations in Abuja on Sunday.
Baru stated measures were already in place to bolster the current fuel supply and eliminate the extraneous factors that had led to the persistent petrol queues.
He said within the last two weeks the national truck out capacity had been jerked up to an average of 1,500 trucks, translating to 52 million litres per day, which is much higher than the normal consumption of 850 trucks per day across the various depots in the country. Also the Corporation has emplaced a 24-hour loading and sales operations in all depots and NNPC Mega Stations across the country while marketers have been instructed to do same, the statement said.
To ensure effective products penetration across the length and breadth of the country, Baru explained that the Corporation had activated the Fuel War Room comprising of team members from the NNPC, the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA), and Petroleum Equalization Fund (PEF), with support from the security agencies.
He said while the NNPC would naturally focus on increasing the volume of products on offer, the DPR, PEF and PPRA have scaled-up monitoring activities to ensure seamless loading and dispensing of fuel nationwide and to specifically ensure deliveries to designated stations and sales at the approved retail price ofN145/litre.
Baru emphasised that though the official landing cost of petrol as at the moment stood atN171.40k per litre, the official government approved pump price of N145 per litre remains intact.
On the volume of products available for supply, the NNPC GMD informed that 13 vessels laden with over 650 million litres of products were currently discharging their contents at the sea port while additional vessels have being lined up to berth early January 2018, the statement said.
He said 814 million litres of petrol were currently being injected into the system to guarantee nationwide elimination of fuel queues before the end of the year.
Representatives of DPR, PEF and PPPRA at the conference registered their agencies’ resolve to work with the NNPC to restore sanity in the supply and distribution of petroleum products, the statement added.
