The shortage in the supply of petrol otherwise known as Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) to Ilorin and its environs, which began penultimate week may have escalated with no sign of the crisis ending anytime soon.

Many major and independent marketers of the fuel within the metropolis shut their gates against customers, indicating that they might have run out of stocks.
The latest situation seemed to have dashed the hope of users, who had anticipated the fuel crisis would subside in a shortest possible time.

Investigations conducted by The Herald in Ilorin on Thursday revealed that the problem had degenerated into a serious hardship as motorists and other users of the commodity spend much time queuing in few filling stations that were dispensing to members of the public.

At Bollyma petrol station along Fate Road, which was the only one selling fuel to the users, long queues of cars were seen with motorists struggling to procure the product while other stations including Rockfield, Real Gold and Conoil on the same road remained shut around 2pm when The Herald arrived the area.

Similarly, all filling stations along Old Jebba road were completely deserted as none of them dispensed fuel to users.

A visit to Post-Office area also showed that both the major and independent marketers were not selling to the public while their gates remained closed.

It was however gathered that some stations were hoarding the product to be able to sell it to black marketers who will in turn sell to desperate users at outrageous prices.

When The Herald visited Maraba area yesterday afternoon, some black marketers were seen attending to some motorists while others displayed the product on the road to attract prospective customers.

Some motorists, who spoke with Herald's correspondent at Bollyma filling station, regretted the lingering fuel scarcity in the state capital and pleaded with relevant agencies of government to intervene on time.

In a telephone chat yesterday, the state chairman of Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, IPMAN, Mr Abdulrasheed Olopade, attributed the brewing petrol crisis to the unavailability of the product in the Oke-Oyi depot of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation.

He said the volume accrued to the depot was hanging in Ibadan due to the incessant vandalization of oil pipeline on Ogbomoso road, adding that the marketers had ceased loading from Oke-Oyi depot.

Olopade maintained that the withdrawal of private security personnel on oil installation had exposed the pipeline to precarious situation with vandals wreaking havoc on regular basis.

He said, "We've stopped loading in Oke-Oyi because of unavailability of the product. Our volume is hanging in Ibadan, and until something urgent is done to the incessant attack on oil pipeline, the problem of fuel shortage would persist.
"We call on stakeholders to rise to the insecurity issue on our pipeline".

The IPMAN boss called for collaborative efforts of locals to curb vandalism.
All efforts to reach the Special Assistant on Petroleum Monitoring, Alhaji Isiaka Lawal Amubieya, to comment on the development failed, as his mobile phone was switched off till the time of filing this report.