Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja
A group, The Natives, has cautioned the Depots and Petroleum Products Marketers Association of Nigeria (DAPPMAN) and other stakeholders in the oil sector to stop threatening the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited in its efforts to ensure seamless supply of petroleum products.
The group made the call in a statement issued yesterday, by its President General, Smart Edwards, while reacting to a media report credited to the Petroleum Tanker Drivers Branch of National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, (PTD-NUPENG) threatening another strike.
It expressed disappointment in the media reports credited to NUPENG against efforts to enforce sanity by a joint task force on illegal activities by marketers.
It said instead of threatening the NNPCL and allegedly sabotaging Nigerians, DAPPMAN and other unions in the oil sector should devise
another productive means of resolving impasse among the stakeholders and not causing panic among Nigerians.
The group also asked all the stakeholders in the oil industry to start preparing for fuel subsidy removal by June 2023, saying the country
cannot continue with the regime of fuel subsidy that benefits only the few.NIt said: “We call on Depot Owners in the oil sector to stop
their acts of economic sabotage capable of imposing hardship on the masses. We believe that your businesses should be done within the law.
“It is an act of sabotage when you purchase products at regulated prices and go on to sell at prohibitive prices to independent
marketers, what then do you expect? This is profiteering at the expense o Nigerians and therefore evil.”
The group stressed that players in the industry must seek new ways of doing things with transparency and not transferring their sole goal of
making profits to the masses.
It added: “We call on IPMAN, PTD and NUPENG to begin to look inwards, sanitise their midst and purge themselves and expel from their
midst some unscrupulous members and unpatriotic players who engage in smuggling, to desist from this retrogressive acts declared on the Nation, so as to carry out their businesses without let or hindrance rather than accusing the military or security agencies of taking actions based on intelligence gathered.”
