The ‘rumour-instigated’ fuel scarcity has now been ‘tamed’- Baru

Maikanti Baru, Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), says petrol scarcity which he maintained was the result of “rumoured price increase” has now been tamed.

Baru made this statement when addressing journalists after the Jumat service at the Aso villa mosque on Friday.

He blamed the scarcity on “greedy” marketers, but stated that normalcy had now returned to Abuja, Lagos and some other parts of the country.

“I’m happy to report that we have tamed the monster that reared its head as a result of the rumoured price increase about three weeks ago,” he said.

Read also: FUEL SCARCITY: War of words continues as marketers refute NNPC’s N26.7bn debt claim

“Unfortunately, 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 smuggled 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 (Friday) morning, 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.

“So, the monster has been tamed in Lagos, the situation has been brought into normalcy as far as two days ago and we are also achieving the same thing in all other cities”, the NNPC boss added.

 

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