.……and our government don’t care,say Nigerians
Residents of the Federal Capital Territory FCT Abuja groan as pump price of Diesel rises to N700.00 per litre.following scarcity of petroleum products .
This is made worse by the break down of the national grid and failure of the Federal Government to pay over a trillion naira owed to Gencos to enable them generate electricity without a hitch.
At Petrol filling stations where Diesel is available, there is a wide range of trucks used for black market buying large quantities of diesel at no pace while people with Jerry cans stood in the scorching sun for hours waiting for their turn to buy the product.
A man who came to buy 50 litres of diesel at Ashafa filling station after waiting for four hours, shivered when he was told after he had been served that he would pay N35,000 for it.
There was anger on the faces of men and women who were at the station , there was depair and loss of faith and trust for the leadership of the country.
Ismaila, a 22- year old aide in a pharmaceuticals who came to buy 100 litres of diesel said” Walahi this country has gone bad. Why should we be suffering like this? Where is the government? Is like nobody is in charge and nobody is telling us anything. Last week, diesel price was N500, today it’s N700 , tommorow they will tell us N1000. And there’s no light anywhere around. They know that many people depend on diesel to power their generators that’s why they fix price anyhow”
John,a Student in graduate school said the scarcity of petroleum products gets worse by the day and wondered why the government has not been able to address the situation for more than one month.
” This situation is going from bad to worse every day and our government just looks on as if they don’t care. Universities have been shut and they don’t care. No electricity, they don’t care. No fuel,they don’t care. Since their attitude towards Nigerians is” We don’t care” We also should do the needful”.
When asked what he meant by needful, He said” but you know what I am talking about. When someone is hungry with no food in sight, he will be angry. I think the government is pushing us to the wall” he said.
Another buyer who said he had been on the queue for more than 4 hours said that the problem of scarcity is sheer greed and compromise between operators of filling stations and Power Holding Companies.
He said” If you observe every year by this time when there is so much of heat and no rainfall, filling stations owners used to go and bribe NEPA people so that there will be no light and people will come out and buy diesel, because if there’s light, nobody will come out in the sun like this to buy diesel.
Tonia,a housewife lamented” This is very scary. I have been struggling for hours to get just 30 litres of diesel but I can’t. This is not the Nigeria we want.
” Two of my fridges have stopped working, there’s no electricity, no fuel, now diesel that used to be available,no way. They bring light and take it within seconds. This is too bad. I just want to buy little diesel so that we will use it to see road in the night and arrange school things for my children to take to school. ” She said.
The contraction in statements made by the Transmission Company of Nigeria ( TCN) and Gencos is worrisome. While the TCN said the darkness in the land was caused by lowering water of the Kainji dam, the Gencos said that is not the case They claimed that over one trillion was being owed by the government and assured that the moment that had been cleared, electricity generation will be normal.
From the look of things, Nigerians would wait much longer for a relief as the situation currently does not seem to offer any form of soothing balm to their pain.
