Oddities of Abuja Petrol Scarcity

Illegal depots, seas of jerry cans, and a sprawling fuel hawking industry gave the recent struggle for scarce petrol in Abuja a peculiar feature. Chineme Okafor reports

Abuja is often regarded as Nigeria’s most organised city. But that reputation seemed to be tainted in the past three weeks, thanks to the nationwide scarcity of petrol. Day by day, the order for which Abuja was known melted in the heat of the biting experience of queuing for hours and even days to buy petrol, or relying reluctantly, indeed bitterly, on mobile petrol hawkers on the streets. 

While petrol scarcity or queues are not particularly new or strange to residents of the city, the latest experience was different because the scarcity of premium motor spirit, the most consumed fuel in Nigeria, was swift and unexpected. It hurt deeply because it left residents with no room for prior planning.

Just a few days into the pms scarcity, Abuja, which hosts the seat of the Nigerian government, was in a virtual lockdown. Vehicles lined filling stations in countless numbers, as motorists struggled and sweated to buy petrol. Even stations that traditionally had petrol to sell during past scarcities, and had gained the confidence of consumers as some kind of sellers of last resort, were locked for the most part of the period of the latest pms shortage.

Diversion

As supplies trickled in following interventions by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, cases of diversion and hoarding soon became the new challenge. The corporation and government fought hard to try to stabilise the situation.

To add to the trouble of diversion and hoarding, mobile petrol dispensers, the black market operators, returned to the streets of the city in full force, and this time, largely unhindered.

Clutching mainly 10 litres jerry cans filled with petrol they got from the supposedly dry petrol stations, these itinerant merchants made quick money from selling petrol at prohibitive prices to stranded consumers. They sold 10 litres of petrol for as much as N3, 500 – instead of N1, 450, which it should ordinarily cost at the controlled price of N145 per litre.  

Even regular taxi drivers, intent on sharing from the black market boom, suddenly turned their cabs into supply sources.

Illegal Depot

Troubled by the worsening petrol scarcity, which had seemed to defy efforts to normalise supplies, NNPC, which became the sole importer and distributor of petrol in Nigeria since October, reportedly sought intelligence on alleged cases of diversion and hoarding. The results it got were quite revealing.

Perhaps, working from the adage that an apple does not fall very far from its tree, the NNPC Group Managing Director, Dr. Maikanti Baru, led searches within the city centre. Baru was stunned at the discovery of a huge illegal depot with huge volumes of petroleum products just opposite the corporation’s mega station along Olu Obasanjo Way in the Central Business District.

“In the heart of the city, right opposite the mega station, this is unbelievable,” said a baffled Baru. The discovery was made in conjunction with the Department of Petroleum Resources and the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps.

The illegal depot was found about 500 meters from a long queue of vehicles waiting to buy petrol from the corporation’s mega station.

Baru said, “In the war room (a room dedicated to address issues around the scarcity), we asked ourselves why the situation persisted. We got an intelligence report of these mini depots and as you can see, these golf cars that are supposed to have 40 litres have tanks that can take 200 litres of petrol.

“This other one is a mini depot. Although, some of the products are diesel, the DPR says it is unauthorised. We have over 50-day supply of diesel and so there is no reason to hoard the product.”

Clampdown

Buoyed by this discovery, the team, which soon adopted the moniker, fuel Joint Task Force, launched further into the deeper parts of the city where it considered illegal acts could be rampant, according to its intelligence.

A filling station in Kubwa had its petrol confiscated by the team for selling above the controlled pump price of N145 per litre. The petrol was freely dispensed to motorists. According to the Zonal Controller of DPR for Abuja, Mr. Mohammed Abba, the station, Khalif Civic Oil and Investment Limited, got busted by the NNPC team for exploiting the public. It followed a tip-off from the public on the shady practices at the filling station.

Abba said the station had 6,000 litres of petrol in stock, and was, in addition to operating with an irregular permit, selling to consumers at N250 per litre.

“We instructed that the product should be dispensed free of charge. We will give them one month to come and regularise their license, after that if he does not come, we will hand over the station and the people concerned to the civil defence to prosecute,” Abba said.

Accordingly, everyone on the queue at the station got 20 litres of the 6,000 litres the team confiscated free of charge.

Continuing its clampdown, the team sealed and dispensed petrol stock held by the same service station owned and operated by the same Khalif Civic Center and Investment Limited and which it previously visited, on account of alleged illegal operations.

Baru, in his reaction to this, stated, “This is an effort of government to continue to identify all those who are a hindrance to the supply of petroleum products.

“Incidentally, this filling station is owned by the same perpetrator of yesterday and to our dismay not only is he selling to people at N250 per litre, but he is also under-dispensing at half the volume as testified by one of the motorists.”

He added, “DPR confirmed yesterday that he did not have licence and they have handed over the station to civil defence for appropriate action. Today, this one has more volume, about 15,000 litres, so we are dispensing five litres to every motorcycle and 20 litres to every car and this will continue.”

Abba, explained, “We have advised the civil defence to apprehend him, they have put that in motion but he is in hiding. If you look at this station, it is an illegal station; there is no way we will give licence to a station within a community because it has not satisfied all the requirements.

“Look at the power lines and high tension cables all around. Moreover, when we spoke yesterday we gave him a concession but I think the owner of this filling station does not need pity from any government.

“The way he situated this, if there is any accident, the amount of lives that would be lost would be massive. We advise that instead of giving this fuel free, the station should be demolished; it should not exist at all.

“Under no circumstance should the station be allowed to exist within this community because it is very dangerous. We call on development control that its Certificate of Occupancy should be revoked.”

The team conducted other raids on stations in Kubwa and around the airport area of the city, and clamped down on an unnamed filling station in Byazhini community in Kubwa, whose staff were caught selling petrol at N250 per litre, as well as in Bassa Jiwa community behind the Abuja airport, where three errant stations were shut down with products in their storage also dispensed free of charge to motorists. One of the stations, McManakai Global Services, had 39,000 litres in its storage tank, which it sold to motorists at N240 per litre, as against the approved price of N145 per litre.

The team also noted that such stations were used to divert products meant for legal filling stations. Seven of such stations, it said, were along the Kubwa and Airport Road axis of Abuja, and their contents dispensed free of charge to motorists by the team.

Baru said about 24 trucks with petrol meant for Abuja were diverted to some states in the South-east, and that the defaulting marketers had been identified.

Following the team’s discoveries, the GMD hinted that black market operators in the city had developed new ways of getting petrol for storage and subsequent sale to the public. He said vehicles owned by them were now refurbished and fitted with bigger tanks that could take more than 300 litres at once.

“They go and siphon the tank and come back. The civil defence has arrested several and will continue to do so. Those who are in the habit of installing extra tanks should beware,” Baru stated. He said the monitoring team had found and arrested 24 marketers who diverted products.