Persisting Fuel Scarcity: Appraising NNPCL's Understanding Of Distribution Efficiency 

It's been exactly one week now since the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd. (NNPCL) began the process of allocating petrol to its members directly both to cushion the effects of the scarcity and fast-track the distribution process.

According to the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), the management of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd. (NNPCL) did allocate petrol to its members directly for this purpose.

Chinedu Okoronkwo, the National President of IPMAN, did confirm this recently in Lagos after the IPMAN NEC meeting with NNPCL management. 

According to Okoronkwo, the order was given after a closed-door meeting between IPMAN executives and NNPCL management.

He went on to disclose how the meeting resolved that IPMAN members should load petrol at NIPCO, MRS, and other loading depots. 

In his view, NNPCL management had confirmed that the product had been released to the depots for immediate loading by IPMAN members.

IPMAN members were encouraged to upgrade their point of sale (POS) to G4 or G5 for payment efficiency.

“The arrangement was in collaboration with NNPCL Retails Ltd. and IPMAN.

"IPMAN Members are advised to open up their stations and start selling to the public nationwide.” 

Okoronkwo said IPMAN was a responsible association with over 85 per cent filling stations across the nooks and crannies of Nigeria.

He added that lPMAN would, in a few days’ time, load at NIPCO and MRS depots massively for South West and North West parts of the country.

Conclusion

All things being equal, going by the feelers in town, the fuel scarcity situation is yet to abate judging by current scenarios in the fuel stations. 

The scrambles at the filling stations, the fights, the long queues, cash acceptance issues, etc, all are pointers to the absence of normalization in the situation.

There's just no reason for what appears as the failure or inability of the NNPCL to tame this situation that has taken its toll on the nation's economy. 

To the extent that petrol scarcity scenarios are rather perennial occurrences in Nigeria, it is not too much to expect the NNPCL to have quick turnaround or mitigation plans for checking these developments in no time.

Enough cannot be said about this!