From Sylvanus Viashima, Jalingo

Motorists have expressed concern and frustration as fuel scarcity continues in Jalingo for over five consecutive days.

Queues resurfaced at the NNPC Mega filling station and a few others while most of the filling stations did not open for business since mid last week after after a long time of relatively stable supply and availability of the Premium Motor Spirit (PMS).

Some of the Motorists who spoke to our correspondent said the situation is not only very frustrating but costing huge money in productive time.

 

Mr Yahaya Yakubu said that “I wasted nearly three productive hours on the line at a filling station after leaving the house as early as 7am just to try and get fuel. I really don’t know where this fuel scarcity is coming from but it is definitely not good. It is very frustrating. For a long time now, we have enjoyed steady supply of fuel in Jalingo and have gotten used to just driving into any filling station to refuel and drive out. So this new situation is not funny at all”.

Similarly, Mr Wilfred Igohia said he lost a whole Saturday morning business just trying to get fuel.

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I run a POS business and Saturday mornings are particularly very important because of my location. Last Saturday, I made the mistake of queuing up to try and get fuel. I ended up wasting nearly the whole morning before I could get fuel. By that time, most of my customers who usually draw money from me for their Saturday’s time at the mechanic had gone to look for other alternatives. I lost all that business. This is not nice at all” Igohia noted.

Perhaps, the worst hit by the new development are commercial drivers.

“I didn’t even know that there was fuel scarcity because I only came back from Gembu on Thursday night and decided to rest most of Saturday. On Sunday morning, I loaded passengers for Gembu and drove to the filling station. Most of them were not even open at all. I had to turn back and went to NNPC where I spent over an hour on the queue with a bus load of passengers. It was a very bad experience”.

Other businesses have also been negatively affected by the fuel scarcity. Mr Kwapsoni Kaigama operates a press and runs mostly on power generators. He shared his experience with our correspondent.

“You know that power supply in not steady. Infact, we operate most times on our generators that need fuel to power. The whole of Friday and Saturday was wasted because there was no light and we could not get fuel. First of all, most filling station are not selling and the few selling don’t want to sell in Jerri cans. I had so much work I couldn’t do and naturally some of the clients were very angry. Sadly, the scarcity has persisted even as we speak. Whatever the cause is, I just hope they resolve it quickly”.

 

Sadly, some motorists and tricycle riders are already taking advantage of the situation to exploit passengers. Even though there has been no increase in the pump price, some have hiked up fares claiming that they pay more to get fuel.