As fuel queues subside across filling stations, the Federal Government says it will sanction marketers hoarding and diverting Premium Motor Spirit.
The Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority said on Tuesday that its men were moving around the country to ensure the fuel loaded at the depots was not hoarded or diverted by any individual for any reason.
This was as the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited warned against panic buying of PMS, saying the company has over 1.5 billion litres of the product in stock for the next 30 days.
In the past two weeks, Nigerians experienced fuel scarcity that forced the prices of petrol to skyrocket from an average of N650 to above N1,000 per litre in many filling stations. During the period, the NNPCL in collaboration with the NMDPRA engaged in massive importation and distribution of the product to reduce the queues and restore normalcy. Between Friday and Sunday, the NMDPRA disclosed that over 4,000 trucks distributed more than 300 million litres of fuel to retail outlets to make petrol available to Nigerians. As of Tuesday, our correspondents observed that filling stations in Abuja, Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Sokoto and others are now selling fuel with little or no queues.
