· It is a major cause of fuel scarcity – Oil marketers
Culled from TheCapital
The anti-corruption war is overrated. Ask oil marketers. The seeds of morality and patriotic service allegedly planted by President Muhammadu Buhari wilted in that very moment he sowed it Nigeria’s fertile mounds.
Contrary to speculations that corrupt oil deals and other shady machinations will become a thing of the past under the watchful eyes of Buhari, dishonesty thrives and gallops through the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
Oil marketers revealed that senior executives of the NNPC connive with subordinates and prominent people in the ruling party to divert oil allocations to family and friends of the ruling party, All Progressives Congress (APC) and even allies in major opposition party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).
The Capital findings revealed that rather than give oil allocations to oil marketers directly, NNPC staff divert oil allocations to cronies and relatives of Nigeria’s ruling class and afterwards, compel oil marketers to purchase the oil allocations from them at ridiculously high prices, which makes it impossible for the marketers to make profit from sales.
This is one of the reasons for the lingering fuel scarcity in the country, according to oil marketers and a highly placed source in the NNPC.
According to a major oil marketer who owns major depots and filling stations across the southwest and southsouth regions, NNPC staff give oil allocations to either an Emir’s son, a retired military General’s in-law or girlfriend of a minister. Then they force oil marketers to buy the allocations from them claiming it is the only way they can get oil allocations.
Sometimes, they tell the marketers that the Emir’s wife is sick and he needs money to finance her surgery in India; other times, they may tell oil marketers that they must buy the allocations from a military officer’s in-law or a minister’s girlfriend who supposedly needs the money urgently to settle some crucial bills.
The story changes on few occasions and they tell the marketers that a governor’s son is getting married and they will have to purchase oil allocations from the intending groom or his mother. Whatever the situation, the oil marketers are often forced to buy oil allocations from the middlemen who sell the allocations at outrageous prices. This is why the marketers rebel and attempt to increase pump price of fuel.
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