Despite the fact that the National Association of Road Transport Owners has called off its strike, there were lengthy lines at several gas stations around Lagos State. In several areas of Lagos, the lines began to form on Tuesday.
Nigerians who feared that premium motor spirit would become hard to find due to the now-halted NARTO strike were the ones who borne the wait. Nigerians staged panic purchases at gas stations on Tuesday and Wednesday.
It was discovered that filling stations controlled by independent marketers, many of whom had ran out of petrol, had also been impacted by the tanker drivers’ reluctance to lift fuel on Monday and Tuesday.
Queues in the main parts of Lagos kept growing, resulting in congestion on the main thoroughfares. Our correspondents observed that the filling stations along the Alausa axis of Lagos, including, Mobil, Total, Conoil and others had long queues.
Also, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited stations in Ogunnusi, Ojodu-Berger and Ikorodu Road had long queues, including Bovas.
Around the Isolo axis, the filling station at Apata Round-about was not selling fuel; it was the same scenario at the Total Filling station located close to Isolo General Hospital.
At Ishaga, an attendant at NPOG filling station told our correspondent that they had run out of fuel in the past three days. the NNPC and Mobil filling stations at the College Bus stop were also out of fuel.
The Quest fuel station along Asuani Road was the only filling station that dispensed fuel on Wednesday, with a long queue of cars and customers struggling to buy at N640 per litre.
Along Gbagada Road, the NorthWest had a long queue of cars and was selling at N610 per litre, while Eternal at Gbagada Bustop was not selling at the time of filing this report.
In an interview with our correspondent, the Vice National President of the Independent Petroleum Marketers, Hammed Fashola, said the queue was caused by the two-day strike embarked upon by the tanker drivers.
“The fuel queues were caused by the two-day stoppage of operations by the tanker drivers. By Monday, everything will clear off. The NARTO members called off their strike yesterday (Tuesday) and they resumed loading of fuel today (Wednesday). All the depots are working now,” Fashola said in a phone interview.
Meanwhile, Lagosians have lamented over the fuel scarcity that struck many neighbourhoods in the state. On X (formerly Twitter), @EricaNlewedim on Wednesday described the development as bad news that was becoming too much.
“The bad news is just too much. What is it? Ahah! And now fuel scarcity, I’m really tired of being an adult in this generation,” the user wrote.
@mhs4lyf, who lamented the situation in Lagos, said he had to trek.
He tweeted, “Fuel scarcity in Lagos and hold up. (I) trekked almost 10km to go home. Thank God for life.”
A user, @honeymiixx, called on President Bola Tinubu to call oil marketers to order, saying, “There’s fuel scarcity in Lagos again! Life is already unbearable for people. Please, talk to the oil marketers.”
@notsocialallen said just at the weekend, he was too lazy to go and buy fuel and “suddenly there’s fuel scarcity in Lagos”.
“There is fuel scarcity in Lagos and they are selling black market fuel for N1,200 and no light since the day before yesterday. Nah this place is hell,” @Thelengygirl posted.
@AAAlatishe wrote, “All the candidates literally said they were going to remove it. But then, you phase it out while having a better power supply everywhere. The subsidy has been removed, now, fuel scarcity everywhere with less or zero power supply. I believe most Nigerians will be okay at buying a litre at N1k, if they will only be using it in their vehicles. This brings me to this question, will we ever witness an uninterrupted 24/7 electricity in this country?”
“Fuel scarcity on top of all these problems is just crazy. Is it that they don’t think we have a breaking point?” @omosalewasmiles asked.
