Fuel scarcity hits FCT

Report gathered that, hundreds of motorists on Friday were left stranded at petrol stations in Abuja as they spent hours on long queues waiting to buy fuel.
The queues were largely pronounced in the city centre as most of the filling stations in satellite towns refused to sell the product without giving customers any reason why they decided not to sell.
At the Total and Conoil petrol stations opposite the headquarters of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation in the city centre, the long queues for fuel led to tense vehicular gridlock.
The NNPC mega station on the Kubwa Expressway was besieged by motorists despite the fact that the outlet was not dispensing product at the time our correspondent visited on Friday afternoon.
Although a senior official at the NNPC stated that there was enough fuel to keep the country wet, it was gathered that the partial scarcity was as a result of panic buying and hoarding by the some marketers.
On Wednesday newsmen made it known that long queue of desperate motorists searching for petrol resurfaced in Ilorin and other parts of Kwara State as well as Owerri and its environs in Imo State.
The Federal Government, in a bid to avert fuel scarcity, agreed to pay petroleum marketers a total of N264bn as subsidy arrears from 2014.
The settlement, it was learnt, will be between February and March and a payment timetable had been drawn for the purpose.
Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, was said to have given the assurance of payment to the marketers at a meeting in Lagos on Monday evening.
The Executive Secretary, Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria, Mr. Obafemi Olawore, had told journalists that the actual subsidy arrears for the period under focus was N164bn, while N100bn was the interest accrued and the foreign exchange differential.