t for Oando and Nigerian national Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), more motorists in Abuja have faced the prospects of being grounded by the fuel scarcity in the federal capital. Which entered day five today.

Most filling stations in the city and the satellite towns are now under lock and key, having run out of petroleum products.

Transport & Business Express can, however, confirm that NNPC and some Oando outlets still have fuel and are selling to the public.

“NNPC continues to sell and a few Oando outlets have joined,” said our correspondent monitoring the situation.

A number of transporters who spoke on how they have been coping disclosed that they now buy from the black market and recoup their expenses by increasing fares. As previously reported by Transport & Business Express, Abuja has become almost a ghost town while transport fares have doubled on some routes.

The localised fuel scarcity is the result of a strike by oil marketing companies, depot and jetty owners under the umbrella of Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN), Depot and Petroleum Products Marketers Association (DAPPMA), Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), and Jetties and Petroleum Tank Farms Owners of Nigeria (JEPTFON) seeking to force the Federal Government to pay their members all outstanding subsidy claims amounting to N200 billion.

The Federal Government has, however, denied the allegation, accusing the oil marketers, some of whom have been indicted in the fuel subsidy scam probe, of blackmail. A meeting with the marketers initiated by the Ministry of Finance has produced no concrete result.

*Photo courtesy tonerophotoagency.blogspot.com

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