Date: 2012-03-05

Fuel scarcity looms across the country as most petrol stations have been under lock and key. 
There were long queues in most petrol stations that had supplies in Lagos, Oyo, Osun and Kwara states.
Nigerian Tribune gathered that the new development might not be unconnected to lack of supply from private depots in Lagos while the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) could not afford to give them enough to supplement their supplies. 

According to the chairman of Independent Petroleum Marketers Association (IPMAN) Oyo/Osun branch, Bashorun Oyewole Akanni, "most marketers have paid in drafts to private depots in Lagos for the past three or four weeks yet, they could not get any supply except for the little they got from the NNPC depots across the country which is not sufficient. Rather, it is used as supplement of what they get from private depots."

Nigerian Tribune investigations, however, revealed that the private depots could not import fuel for some time now.

The Ibadan NNPC depot, which is supposed to be dispensing about five million litres per day to major and independent marketers, could only dispense two million litres which is shared among Oyo, Osun, Kwara, Kogi states and Abuja. 

Though some major marketers are still selling to customers, independent marketers have shut down their filling stations.

Panic buying was noticed by consumers, while long queues are now constant in most of the filling stations in Oyo, Kwara, Kogi and Osun states.

As at noon yesterday, all filling stations in Osogbo had shut their gates while queues were noticed in Ibadan, Oyo, Ogbomoso Ilorin and other major towns in the affected states.