There are strong indications that business activities will grind to a halt in Kaduna if the present fuel scarcity plaguing the state continues in the next 48 hours.
DAILY POST was out to survey the situation and discovered that fuel queues continue to mount in many parts of the town despite recent pronouncement by oil marketers under the aegis of Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN), assuring that normalcy would return very soon as they had received their subsidy claims from government and started importing petrol.
Before the payment, the marketers attributed the fuel scarcity to non-release of the fund but there has been no respite for motorists as long queues continue to be common sight in most filling stations, indicating that Nigerians may spend the Christmas season searching for petrol.
Commuters are seen in large numbers in different parts of the metropolis and environs waiting aimlessly for commercial vehicles to convey them to their various destinations, while the few vehicles that could source the product at black market charge high amount as transport fares.
Our correspondent observed that only few vehicles were plying the roads as most vehicles are seen parked around filling stations for days waiting for fuel, while business activities is getting at a low ebb.
Secretary of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), Dandali Pasali attributed the present fuel scarcity on the supply gap created recently by the non-payment of subsidy claims, stressing that another problem that the government failed to address was the failure to pay the bridging cost for the marketers for the last three months.
He pointed out that some marketers who were supplying 10 trucks from Lagos could not afford to do so due to the paucity of funds.
A motorist, who identified himself as James, said he has spent about three days queuing in a filling station hoping to fuel his car only to be told that the product got finish when there were only four vehicles ahead of his car in the queue.
“It is so frustrating. After all these days l spent queuing for fuel without doing anything that will help me, I was told that the product has finished,” he lamented.
Some passengers, who were travelling for the Yuletide, expressed sadness with the way and manner things have become so hard for Nigerians due to the fuel scarcity.
Some of them told DAILY POST that the fuel scarcity has affected virtually all sectors in the state, thereby making their lives miserable.
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