April 7 fuel deadline: Are Nigerians relieved?

Nigerians may be heaving a sigh of relief after weeks of hardship due to shortage of fuel and electricity supply.

This is because, the News Agency
of Nigeria (NAN) Thursday, reported that 1,000 tankers
were loading the product at the Lagos depot.

NAN reports that the articulated
vehicles were sighted at Capital Oil,
Folawiyi, NIPCO, Aiteo, Mobil,
Rahamaniya, De Jones and Integrated
Oil loading points.
It will be recalled that the Minister of
State for Petroleum Resources, Dr Ibe
Kachickwu, had on March 29, assured
Nigerians that the persistent petrol
scarcity will end by April 7.

Some of the depot owners who
preferred anonymity disclosed to NAN
that workers had been compelled to do
24-hour massive loading of petrol
since April 5 to ease the scarcity.
They claimed that about four vessels
bearing 33,000 metric tonnes of petrol
had berth to discharge into storage
facilities under the throughput
arrangement agreement with the
Nigerian National Petroleum
Corporation (NNPC).

The depot owners said that the deadline set by the Minister of State
for Petroleum Resources for fuel
queues to disappear April 7 might not be achieved.

According to them, most trucks that
load in Apapa do not only serve Lagos
metropolis but also travel to other
states in the south-west.

“We are faced with logistics challenges
in loading some of the trucks because
some of the marketers who are in joint
vessel allocation delay in clearing their
lines.

“The vessel which was meant for three
marketers takes longer time to
discharge due to some hitches of
discharging into their storage
facilities.

“Another challenge has to do with
clearance from the Navy, PPPRA, DPR
and other agencies in charge of
inspection to ascertain marketers who
are going to be paid on subsidy
schemes.

“It is easier to discharge to a marketer
than joint allocation of many
marketers. This is another cause of
delay in loading of the product,’’ they
said.

NAN also reports that as at 10 a.m. on
Thursday, long queues of tankers
dotted the service lanes of Apapa
Oshodi expressway, from Cele bus stop
to Ibafon jetty.

Security officials had a hectic time
controlling traffic to ensure that the
truck drivers complied with traffic
rules.

According to a marketer who
identified himself as Alhaji Saliu
Abiodun, Capital Oil and Gas has
commenced a 24-hour service.

Abiodun, who urged other depots to
follow suit, confirmed that about 46
million metric tonnes of petrol was
expected to be injected into the supply
chain from Thursday from the NIPCO
depot.

He said the delay in getting approvals
from the relevant authorities to give
clearance to cargoes was also slowing
the loading process and compounding
the scarcity situation.

It was observed that motorists at filling
stations had been orderly than the
previous days which often caused
serious gridlock on the roads.