The Kwara State Fire Service yesterday said it has recorded over 30 fire incidents resulting from storage of petroleum products by black marketers since the beginning of the year. The Head of Department, Fire Prevention, Mr. Yakub I. Waheed, said this in Ilorin during a security/stakeholders meeting on petroleum products black marketing.

Waheed urged members of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) to always alert the Fire Service on where the products are sold for black marketers. Earlier, the Controller of the Department of Petroleum Resources in Ilorin, Mr. Philip Salvation, told the meeting that the activities of black marketers amount to dereliction of the department's job. Salvation explained that it was the collective effort of the government, IPMAN, media and security agencies to solve the problem. Reacting on behalf of other marketers at the meeting, IPMAN Chairman, Alh. Olanrewaju Okanlawon, lamented that almost all the independent marketers have not been supplied petrol since the scarcity began, whereas major marketers and NNPC mega stations have been supplied products that they cannot even stock. "If there is no scarcity, black marketers won't thrive. Some filling stations are getting more products while other are not getting," he said.