Some car owners in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) say they have abandoned their vehicles due to the incessant long petrol queues, and have resolved to commercial commuting.
The residents who spoke in with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday in Abuja, decried the unending fuel situation in the country.
They said that the situation was unexpected after the Federal Government had removed petrol subsidy.
Mrs Rebecca Takaa, a public servant and resident of Usuma Dam, said that she had stopped using her vehicle for some weeka now.
Takaa said that she could not join the long queues at the filling stations.
“It has been stressful using commercial vehicles since I can not afford to buy fuel for my car, and I do not have the time to join the long queue.
“To avoid this trouble, I just stopped using the car for now and resolved to taking commercial vehicles to the office and back, which is also expensive but not as much as using my car.
“I am just keeping faith that the government is working on a solution to end this fuel situation soon enough,” she said.
Mr Alu Joshua, a commercial transporter in Bwari, said that the situation had been so discouraging, adding that some of his fellow drivers have not been able to do business for days.
According to him, staying on long queues is time consuming, which affects the number of times one is supposed to work in a day in order to make profit.
He said that, the fuel situation kept coming up at unexpected times to disrupt the now staggering businesses in the country.
Joshua appealed to the government to make deliberate policy action to end the reoccurring situation.
Another resident, Mr David Ogedengbe, told NAN that he had not been able to buy petrol for almost a week, inspite of joining a queue with his vehicle almost everyday.
“I had no choice than to resort to buying from the black market, where I bought for almost N1,500 per litre.
”This, however, is unfortunate as it ended up affecting my fuel pump because the fuel was not clean enough.
” The situation is getting difficult and pathetic by the day and what is most worrisome is that the petrol is yet to be available,” he said.
On her part, Miss Jennifer Ibrahim, who owns a hairdressing salon in Nyanya, also decried the effect of the fuel situation on her business, adding that, the black market price has not been equally affordable.
” Black market price now doubles the official price, the entire situation is exhausting.
” The little I can afford does not even last long enough to attend to more than two customers; especially with the unstable electricity supply, and customers complain when I charge extra.
” We are appealing to the government to act swiftly and bring a lasting solution to end this fuel scarcity in order to save Nigerians from the stress and also make it beneficial to everybody,” Ibrahim said.
NAN reports that the FCT had for weeks now, experienced long queues at filling stations with a surge in price of petrol from N850 to N980 and N1000 per liter in some locations.
NAN reports that the black marketers sell a 10 litre gallon for as high as N10,000 to N15, 000.
However, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) has continued to assure Nigerians that efforts were being made to restore normalcy to the now deteriorating situation. (NAN
