Chinwendu Obienyi
The National Youth Council of Nigeria (NYCN) says it is satisfied with the efforts of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) towards ensuring adequate distribution of petroleum products across the country in the past seven days of the lockdown in some states to curtail the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19).
The Council, in a statement by its President, Comrade Solomon Adodo, noted that it had set up a monitoring team to assess the situation following assurances by NNPC of availability of petroleum products after President Muhammadu Buhari ordered the lockdown in the affected states.
This, the Council said, resulted to Nigerians embarking on a binge of panic buying of petroleum products, despite advice by the NNPC.
“This development necessitated our team to embark on an independent nationwide exercise to monitor the availability and distribution of petroleum products and from results of our field surveys across the country we can boldly say that the panic buying was needless.
The NNPC has kept to its word in ensuring constant and efficient availability of petroleum products at recommended prices despite the bottlenecks occasioned by the lockdown”, the statement stated.
While commending the leadership of the Group Managing Director of NNPC, Mele Kyari, the Council assured the NNPC has more than sufficient petroleum products in thousands of retail outlets across the country and that there are still more products stored up in the depots.
