The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has described as false, a trending social media report of an impending fuel scarcity due to purported refusal by some oil marketers to lift products from depots.
The corporation, in a statement in Abuja yesterday by its Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Ndu Ughamadu, appealed to Nigerians to disregard the rumour, explaining that the tale was fabricated by mischief-makers with intent to create undue panic in the prevailing sanity in the fuel supply and distribution matrix across the country.
Ughamadu said the NNPC has over one billion litres of petrol in stock, while imports of 48 vessels of 50 million litres each have been committed for this month alone.
According to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), the corporation’s spokesman stressed that there was no need for panic buying or hoarding of petroleum products in anticipation of a phantom scarcity, reiterating that the pump price of petrol remained N145 per litre.
As at yesterday, queues were noticed in some filling stations across the country as a result of the rumour, as motorists engaged in panic buying, with scarcity observed in some states, such as Kwara. In Abuja, few queues were noticeable in some filling stations at the Central Business District, but most station around the city and Lagos dispensed the products to motorists as usual and at the regulated prices without queues, just as some attendants expressed surprise at the sudden surge of buyers.
