Oscarline Onwuemenyi
15 December 2017, Sweetcrude, Abuja – The Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), Kano State Command, on Thursday, inaugurated a Task Force Committee to monitor distribution and sales of fuel in the state.
The State Commandant of the NSCDC, Mr. Aliyu Mohammed, said the setting up of the committee followed the directive of the Commandant General, Mr. Abdullahi Gana Mohammadu.
According to him, the seven-member will work with the officials of the Petroleum Products Marketing Company (PPMC), Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) so as to restore normal distribution and sales of the commodity at official price.
He said they would also work to prevent diversion of the product from the point of discharge to ensure whole content of each truck was discharged as per the manifest.
“The task force committee is also expected to check diversion and selling the product in 10 and 20 litre containers and other fraudulent activities being perpetrated unpatriotic elements,” he said.
He said that the committee was also mandated to submit daily report to state headquarters which would in turn be forwarded to the Zonal headquarters.
He urged members of the committee to discharge their duties without fear or favour and called on marketers to cooperate with the committee to enable it discharge its responsibilities effectively.
Following the scarcity, some of the marketers had increased their prices from N145 per litre to between N180 and N200 per litre.
Black marketers have since started exploiting the situation by increasing their prices as a four litre gallon of the commodity now cost between N1, 000 and N1, 100 as against N700.
Recall that the Commandant General of the NSCDC, Mr. Abdullahi Gana Muhammadu, earlier in the week, warned petrol dealers in the country against inflicting hardship on the people by hoarding the product.
Muhammadu, who made this known in Abuja during a surveillance conducted by the Corps on the emerging fuel scarcity in the country, warned oil marketers against hoarding fuel in anticipation of a rise in pump prices, terming the move as illegal.
Muhammadu also cautioned oil marketing companies on hoarding of petroleum products in anticipation of economic gain, saying it is illegal and any company found culpable of such an activity risks cancellation of its operating licence.
He said any fuel marketer caught hoarding the product or selling above the approved pump price of N145 would be made to face the wrath of the law.
Muhammadu said, “Any filling station caught hoarding the product or selling petrol above the official pump price would not only be sanctioned but will have such filling station sealed off.”
The NSCDC, however, appealed to members of the public to always inform it of any wrongdoings from any filling stations.
According to him, “There should not be any reason for us in Nigeria to be suffering to get the product and that there was no reason for any dealer to hoard fuel when relevant authorities insisted that there were no plans to jerk up the pump price of petrol.
“We heard from a reliable source that many trailers left depots across the country for states with the product. We have however dispatched some of our people to depots to get the names of the filling stations and the quantity. We wanted to do this so that we shall be able to trace where the trailers have been diverted to.
“Meanwhile, anyone caught, the dealer, filling station, manager of such station, the trailer and its attendants will be dealt with,” he added.
The Civil Defence boss, therefore, appealed to the marketers to bring the allotted supply to the different stations to reduce the hardship currently being faced by the people.
He assured the public that the country has enough stock of fuel and all effort is being made to ensure that the product is available across the country, adding, that “Consequently, we expect the situation to normalize in the next 24 hours.”