Sanction Importers of Adulterated Fuel, Delta Businessman Urges FG

Sylvester Idowu in Warri

Chairman of DAS Energy Services in Udu near Warri in Delta State, Chief Sunny Onuesoke, has urged the federal government to immediately sanction those behind the importation of adulterated fuel into the country.

He also stated that oil regulatory agencies officials who collaborated with the oil importers should be sacked and made to face the wrath of the law.

Onuesoke, who is an oil and gas magnet, lamented that it is disheartening that over five weeks after the adulterated fuel was imported into the country, the government is yet to bring those behind

the dastardly act to book.

Onuesoke, a former governorship aspirant on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state, at a press conference yesterday, maintained that the importers and staff of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) involved in the importation of the fouled fuel would have been fired long time ago in a sane country.

He maintained that no sane country or buyer would buy an oil product without strict requirement for presentation of standards test reports both at the port of loading and port of discharge, noting that the importation of substandard fuel into Nigeria is enough reason for a complete sack and criminal prosecution of the importers and NNPC staff involved in the act.

Onuesoke argued that allowing NNPC management staff involved in the importation of the bad fuel to get away with the impudence would be a rape on Nigerians’ collective integrity as a country and a shame to the current administration.

“If the NNPC management knows what they are supposed to do, a standardised method should have been placed to confirm that any products coming to the country are within the set-up ranges. If that has been the case, these imported dirty products should have been confirmed to meet the standard before releasing them to the public.

“Secondly, it is this same lack of planning by NNPC that resulted in having all our four refineries gone comatose. They had spent a considerable amount of billions of naira for maintenance and turnaround of our refineries without producing one drop of refined oil.

“Lastly, if a professional has been in charge instead of this quota system and political appointees with little knowledge of what they ought to do, these and other problems confronting NNPC would not have existed.”