queue on a  Lagos filling station

By Ejiofor Alike

Long queues of vehicles waiting for fuel were noticed in Lagos Friday,
following
the withdrawal of tankers from the roads by truck owners under the aegis of the
Nigerian Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO), in protest
against rising cost of diesel.
With an ex-depot price of between N145 and N148 per litre in most
private depots
in Lagos, the price of diesel in filling stations has hit N155 per litre.
However, the diesel imported by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation
(NNPC) is sold at between N99 and N105 per litre at some designated depots.
The vehicle owners had earlier last month withdrawn their trucks from lifting
fuel from the depots for two days but were pacified by the government through a
special allocation of diesel in some selected private depots in Lagos.
Diesel is used to fuel tankers that distribute other petroleum products across
the country and the vehicles owners are aggrieved that despite the rising cost,
the money paid to them by the government as bridging claims for distributing
these products have remained fixed.
THISDAY gathered that NIPCO Plc and few other depots were each allocated
5,000metric tonnes of Automative Gas Oil (AGO), otherwise called diesel,
translating to 200 tankers each, to enable the vehicle owners access
the product
at subsidised price.
This measure helped NARTO to cushion the excruciating effects of the
rising cost
of diesel, prompting them to suspend the two-day action.
But following the exhaustion of this allocation, coupled the rising cost of the
product at the international market, the vehicle owners have embarked
on another
protest.