Many filling stations in Aba, the commercial nerve centre of Abia State, have shut down due to the high cost of sourcing petroleum products from third-party marketers other than the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.
According to the PUNCH, it was reported that some filling stations in the city that sell petrol to people at prices between N1300 and N1350 were the ones that lifted the products at costs more than NNPC control prices.
The Executive Chairman of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, Aba branch, Mazi Oliver Okolo, in an interview said that the NNPC had not supplied petroleum products to their members in the past three months.
He said the NNPC had been selling the products to some suppliers, who indirectly sell the product to the IPMAN members at exorbitant prices.
Mazi Okolo said, “Our members now lift petrol at high costs and sell to motorists and other users at high cost,” adding that if the refineries were working, people would buy petrol at affordable prices.
Therefore, he called on the federal government to make the 21 NNPC refineries in the country functional to reduce the suffering of the people.
In his reactions, a member of the National Executive, Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, Chief Godfrey Chukwunyere, said NNPC sells petrol to mega stations, significant marketers and independent petroleum marketers at different high rates in addition to the inexperienced personnel handling the affairs of the corporation
Chief Chukwunyere, who called for the total overhaul of the petroleum sector, appealed to the federal government to prevail on the NNPC to sell petroleum products at uniform prices to make things easier for the people.
