Protests responsible for long fuel queues – IPMAN

The Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, IPMAN, has said the ongoing hunger protest is responsible for the resurgence of long fuel queues in filling stations in major cities across the country.

Recall that since Thursday last week, Nigerians have continued to demonstrate on the streets, tagged #EndBadGovernance.

Part of the demand is the return of fuel subsidies.

The protests had led to the death of at least fifteen persons and properties destroyed in Kano, Niger, Jigawa, Yobe, and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.

The protests had prompted President Bola Ahmed Tinubu Sunday’s broadcast, where he appealed for protesters to suspend the demonstration and dialogue with the government.

While there are uncertainties on how things will pan out in the next few days, oil marketers have blamed the long queues being witnessed across cities on the protests.

The National Public Relations Officer of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, Chief Chinedu Ukadike, in a statement, said that there was no movement of trucks during the protests, especially on Thursday and Friday.

“…Now that the trucks are no longer moving due to this protest, the depots are not working, the truck drivers are not driving, particularly during the first and second days of the protest, these issues have disrupted the supply of petroleum products. So it will result in scarcity at the filling stations,” Ukadike stated.

Earlier, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited blamed the resurgence of long fuel queues on a “hitch in the discharge operations of a couple of vessels.”