Petrol Queues Won’t Go Until We Do What Is Right – Osifo

Posted by African Examiner Featured, Latest Headlines, News Across Nigeria Thursday, August 22nd, 2024

(AFRICAN EXAMINER) – Amid recent petrol scarcity in the country, the President of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN), Festus Osifo, says periodical queues will not stop until the country do what is right.

Osifo, who doubles as the President of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), said that the logistical challenges causing most of the petrol scarcities in the country must be tackled if the queues disappear.

“Even if the queues go away in the next one week, we cannot guarantee that after one month it will not return because we are always going to have challenges in the logistics until we do what is right,” Osifo said.

“Either we fix the pipelines so that from those coastal areas we could feed the hinterland or we have those strategic reserves across the length and breadth of the country, maybe in the six geopolitical zones. Until we have that, we are in for it.

“So, the problem may be solved in two weeks but I cannot guarantee that in the next two or three months the challenges will not resurface again.”

Queues resurfaced in most filling stations in the country early this week and oil marketers attributed it to lingering logistical challenges.

Osifo believes that one of the ways to solve the logistic challenges is to have strategic reserves for petrol.

“Where we move these products when we import them are in tank farms in Lagos, Port Harcourt and Calabar mainly.

“So, when you import these products you keep it there and from there you distribute to the nooks and crannies of Nigeria, so when there are issues down South you cannot move these products to the North.

“But should we have strategic reserves you keep these products there whenever you have challenge locally or internationally you could tap into your reserves and at the end you could be able to service the country.

“So that is one of the things we have proposed so that this logistic challenges will not be happening every day,” Osifo said.

He recommended that petrol depots across the country must be made to function again to address the challenges.

On oil theft which has remained an obstruction to the country’s economic growth, Osifo said that PENGASSAN has proposed several solutions to the government, including how to use technology to end oil theft.

“We can actually deploy technology to resolve this issue of crude oil theft,” he said.