The scarcity and high cost of Premium Motor Spirit, or petrol, across Nigeria may worsen in the coming days if the Petrol Tanker Drivers under the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (PTD-NUPENG) carries out its threat to stop lifting products at its Port Harcourt zone by Monday, January 9.
The threat is coming after the union alleged that men of the Nigerian military burnt down two trucks conveying high pour fuel oil (HPFO), popularly known as black oil, while in transit from Imo to Delta State.
Nigerians have in the past weeks been in the throes of a biting fuel scarcity marked by long queues at petrol stations and high cost of the product. Across many cities of Nigeria, pump price of petrol is as high as N400 per litre, with only NNPC retail stations selling within the N169 official rate.
Lucky Osesua, chairperson of Petrol Tanker Drivers, at a press conference in Abuja, said the decision to suspend operations would stand until all the damages incurred as a result of the high-handedness of the military task force were addressed.
Osesua said the trucks, marked EFR 770 XA and AFZ 351 ZY, lifted the black oil from a modular refinery operated by Walter Smith Refinery and Petrochemicals in Ibigwe, Imo State, but were intercepted by the military in Rivers State, where the trucks were set ablaze.
He said the destruction of PTD-NUPENG product trucks could affect fuel supply across the country, thereby increasing lingering fuel scarcity.
Giving details of the incident, Osesua, who presented photographs of the burnt trucks to members of the press, said the trucks laden with 40,000 litres of black oil were on their way to Bob & Sea Depot Koko in Delta State.
“The drivers presented way bills, NUPENG receipts, and quality control documents but the military men still insisted that they carried crude oil. They drove the two trucks away and burnt them between Ahoada and Elele in Rivers State, on Tuesday night,” Osesua alleged.
He said the soldiers burnt down the trucks in less than five hours without investigation, without reaching out to the refinery where the drivers mentioned that they lifted the black oil.
“Enough is enough about the high-handedness of our security agents. They should stop demonizing our union and persecuting our men who are doing their normal business. We expect that in this modern world, trained security agents should be able to identify black oil as against crude oil. We should not be at the receiving end of their ignorance,” he said.
