By-Adetola Bademosi, Abuja z
The Federal Government (FG) has assured that Nigerians will start seeing improvements in fuel situations across the country.
This was even as it insisted that the ongoing petrol scarcity has nothing to do with politics as generally perceived.
The Minister of State Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva, gave the assurance while speaking with journalists in Abuja after visiting some petrol stations.
He said the Federal Government had taken adequate steps to improve the product supply, stressing that factors beyond the government’s control had led to the scarcity.
Sylva assured consumers that normalcy had returned and would be sustained before and after the general elections.
According to him, “Mr President directed that we must ensure that the fuel supply situation is normalised quickly, and that is why I have to leave everything I am doing to ensure that we can sort out this problem.
“You can see that a lot has been done, and all hands have been on deck. NNPC Limited, NMDPRA and everybody in the supply chain have come together to see that this problem is resolved.
“It is unfortunate a few people tried to think that there is politics involved but this has nothing to do with politics, I can assure you. When problems like this arise, you try to find out what caused it. It might be due to a natural disaster like we had with the flood and anything can trigger it. We are not saying we have control of all the factors because there are natural factors that we are not in control of but as far as the factors that we are in control of, we are now in control of those factors. I can assure you that between now and the elections, and beyond we will not have these queues anymore”.
On the long-term solution to the crisis, the Minister said the government had invested heavily in the rehabilitation of the nation’s four refineries.
He said petrol would be readily available once repairs are concluded, in addition to the government’s 20 per cent stake in Dangote Refinery.
“The government is seriously engaged in the rehabilitation of the refineries. The Port Harcourt refinery is at an advanced stage, the Kaduna refinery has just been awarded, and we are hoping to beat the deadline. Warri refinery rehabilitation is also progressing well, and we have to take a 20 per cent stake in the Dangote refinery. There are also modular refineries coming on stream.
“These are efforts by the government to ensure that this problem is solved permanently. This is not something that can be achieved by the waving of a magic wand. But I can assure you that when everything comes together, Nigerians will have President Buhari to thank for it because he has laid the foundation for the final resolution of this problem”, he added.
