There is a looming threat of fuel scarcity across the country, as loading and transporting of petrol and other related products have been halted by members of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) and Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) in Oyo and Osun States.
The petroleum stakeholders announced the suspension of their operations at an emergency meeting held in Ibadan on Saturday. According to them, the decision became imperative due to the incessant harassment and extortion of members by the Police.
The emergency meeting was attended by the Ibadan depot chairman, Mutiu Bukola, and chairman, Petroleum Tanker Drivers (PTD) branch of NUPENG, Hammed Hamzat.
Also in attendance were the chairman, independent marketers branch of NUPENG, Surajudeen Adegoke and IPMAN, vice-chairman, Olalekan Lawal.
According to reports, they unanimously condemned the operations of the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) monitoring team on the highway, which had been disrupting the lifting of petroleum products from depot to filling stations in the two States.
Bukola, speaking on behalf of the associations, called for an immediate end to harassment and extortion of members of the associations. He said they would not resume operations until the issues were addressed.
According to the IPMAN branch chairman, no filling stations would open and there would be no movement of petroleum tankers in the two States until members of the IGP monitoring team are removed from the road. A tanker driver bringing in a truck load of diesel was arrested at Gbongon junction in Osun in the early hours of Saturday and detained along with his truck.
The team has assumed the role of Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), which is the regulator in the sector. The NMDPRA officers at the lifting depot had already certified the product, meaning that there was no issue at all, only for the driver and the truck to be detained by the IGP monitoring team at Gbongbon.
We hereby call for immediate release of the driver and the truck, the associations said. In the last few months, he said, the police team had wrongly arrested several tanker drivers and trucks, only to discover that they were innocent after investigations.
According to him, There will be no movement of trucks in and out of Osun and Oyo States, meaning that there will be no loading of petroleum products from depot to filling stations within the two States, adding that, The purpose of the IGP monitoring team was to stop vandalism of pipelines but the team has left its function and is now chasing other things.
Bukola also condemned what he described as multiple charges that had been crippling operations in the petroleum sector in the two States.
