End fuel scarcity now, by TUC

The ongoing fuel scarcity and consequent reappearance of long queues of vehicles at filling stations throughout the country has crippled economic activities for almost a week now. The Congress feels pained that this is happening, especially at a time when Nigerians are mourning the wanton killing of thousands of people in the North East of the country. We understand that some of the killed persons might have escaped their assailants but for the fact that there was no fuel for the vehicles that they might have used.
The familiar trend of periodic scarcity of fuel is simply unacceptable. Nigeria remains about the sixth largest oil producing country in the world and “giant of Africa,” and one ordinarily expects this to translate to great fortune and comfort for the average Nigerian. Unfortunately this has not been the case as majority of the masses have remained impoverished in the midst of plenty. More depressing are reports that the scarcity is artificially created by the same cabal that has vowed not to see our ailing refineries work let alone new ones built.
Over the years, workers in the oil and gas sector and other well-meaning Nigerians have repeatedly bemoaned the state of our refineries and called for new ones to be built but successive administrations have paid deaf ears to their cries. Instead what we have had is gross mismanagement of the oil and gas industry to the extent that we neither know the quantity of crude produced daily nor how much the country really makes from the sector. Indeed, from all indications it may not be far-fetched to view the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation as the no. 1 conduit pipe for siphoning the national wealth.
The recent comments by Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, suspended Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, when he said the NNPC failed to remit some due amounts of money to the CBN comes to mind. In as much as we fault the inconsistencies in the figures he mentioned, we are hard pressed to believe that there is some truth in his accusation.
The Congress therefore calls on government to x-ray the activities of the NNPC, marketers and everyone or organisation that has anything to do with the oil and gas industry so as to put an immediate end to the present scarcity of fuel and also avert any recurrence of same in future. Surely we can do without any more of such national embarrassment.
Statement issued by Comrade Bobboi Bala Kaigama and Comrade Musa Lawal, the President and Secretary General of the Trade Union Congress.