A former Secretary of National
Democratic Coalition, NADECO and Convener of Coalition of Democrats for
Electoral Reforms, Mr. Ayo Opadokun said it is shameful that Nigeria, which is
one of the largest global producers of crude oil, still imports petrol for
domestic consumption.
Opadokun told journalists in Offa
on Tuesday that the lingering fuel crisis is a result of prolonged misrule by
military.
He also blamed the sole ownership
of fuel tanks built by independent marketers for fuel scarcity across the
country.
Opadokun said “I am extremely sad
and weakened over the fuel crisis. But I know it to be a cumulative effect of
the prolonged misrule of the country by the military.
“When Buhari was there as the
military Head of State, he built refineries but none has been added to the ones
he built. The population was not as large as this; the vehicular movement was
not as large and wide as this.
“Since then, what has happened?
Those who took over from him have totally ravaged Nigeria. What they needed to
do, they did not do.
“I was part of the Nigeria Labour
Congress team that did sufficient research. We went to Libya, Egypt, Saudi
Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Venezuela to find out how much it costs to
explore one barrel of crude oil. Nigeria’s own is the most costly in the world
and then, what are they doing now?
“What has happened in the last
three or four months is that because the government is not willing to add more
money to their profit, they (importers) said they would not import. So, the
Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation has been importing the totality of fuel
being used in Nigeria.
“But because we have been used to
a system where fuel tanks (tank farms) are being built by independent marketers,
they made that unavailable and impossible for the distribution to go
seamlessly. That is the cause of the crisis.”
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No, it is not the fault of the military, it is the fault of our colonial masters. After 18 years of democracy, someone still opens his mouth to blame military for fuel scarcity.
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