A review of the most hit region of the country in terms of sufferings’ and hardships associated with the recurring fuel scarcity has shown that the five south east states and two states in South South including Akwa Ibom and Cross Rivers were the most hit.
As at Monday January 1, 2018, checks around Orlu main town of Imo State, the closest town to Governor Okorocha’s hometown of Ogboko still show that petrol stations still sell products between N230 and N250 per litre.
Several motorists who spoke to Business Hilights said from the beginning of the crisis till date, no taskforce has visited Orlu town and environs.
However, while Nigerians are still confused on whether to say that the fuel situation is normalizing, the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Dr. Maikanti Baru, claimed that the Federal Government has successfully tamed “the monster” of fuel scarcity that marred Christmas holidays across the country.
In an interview with State House correspondents after joining fellow Muslims for Jumat service in a mosque at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, he boosted that details available to him showed that normalcy had returned to Abuja, Lagos and many other parts of the country as far as fuel distribution was concerned.
While linking the scarcity to the activities of “some greedy marketers” who he accused of hoarding and diverting products because of a rumoured price increase, Baru inferred that “I’m happy to report that we have tamed the monster that reared its head as a result of the rumoured price increase about three weeks ago.
“Unfortunately, that rumour instigated a lot of marketers to be very greedy and they decided that their fellow citizens should not enjoy the Christmas holiday and New Year with ease and decided to profiteer, starting by hoarding and diversion of products.
“At the beginning, I did address the press, telling the world that we have sufficient products that will last us 30 days through the New Year into January; but because the marketers wanted to inflict harm and pains on fellow citizens, they decided to hoard products, divert them and in some cases, even smuggled products out of the country.”
“This has been tamed by the actions we took and I personally led the war around Abuja and other teams led the war in Lagos and other parts of the country.
“As of this (Friday) morning, I have gone round the Abuja metropolis and I have seen that the queues have reduced significantly to almost normal level and few motorists that I heard speaking on morning programmes concerning what I have seen said they have not spent up to 30 minutes to fuel their car.
“So, the monster has been tamed in Lagos, the situation has been brought into normalcy as far as two days ago and we are also achieving the same thing in all other cities,” NNPC boss claimed.
