The Petroleum Tankers Drivers (PTD) branch of National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) has accused the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), of being behind the current fuel scarcity in some parts of the country.
PTD National Chairman, Comrade Salimon Akanni Oladiti, made the pronouncement while addressing newsmen in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital.
As stated by Oladiti, oil marketers are not hoarding fuel.
He stated that the oil NNPC are importing into the country is not sufficient.
His words “We are not conniving with anybody to make Nigerians suffer for fuel. For sometime now, we have not been able to load at NNPC depot in Apata, Ibadan and there is not hope of loading in some other NNPC depot in Southwest.
“Government is responsible for this problem, because if they bring enough oil into the country, we as distributor we are ready to sell it out. It’s so sad that we are one of the largest producers of oil but we are still suffering.”
Oladiti stated that presently, 75 percentage of the oil we are consuming in the country now is imported into the country by NNPC, while the remaining 25 percentage is for major marketers.
"You cannot say because you want to manage your resources you will not stop to suffer, what the government is trying to tackle still exist, corruption is still in the oil industry. There is corruption, bribery at all the oil depot before you can load your truck,” he stated.
Oladiti noted that government needs to find lasting solution to incessant fuel scarcity in the country without further delay, stressing that the common man in the country is suffering.
He also urged the government to embark on aggressive rehabilitations of roads and railway networks, nothing that many accidents are caused by bad roads, especially for tankers.
On the challenges facing his members, the PTD Chairman said: ”If not because we believe in this government, we just want to wait and see what they can do.
“Tanker drivers across the country are suffering. Look at Ilorin-Oloru-Jebba Road, a distance of less than 60kms; it took a tanker to cross from Ilorin to Jeba 5-7 days, it is a pity.”