(http://dailytrust.com.ng/images/stories/the%20unwieldy%20queue%20of%20kerosene%20buyers%20from%20a%20distance.jpg)
The unwieldy queue at the side of the NNPC Mega station in Central Area Abuja when our reporter visited the area
In spite of several promises from government officials about combating kerosene scarcity, the problem has refused to go with the suffering it entails for low income-earning Nigerians.
Our reporter was at an overwhelmed kerosene selling point, the NNPC Mega station at Central Area in Abuja, where joining an unwieldy queue of anxious kerosene buyers has become a normal every-day feature.
When this reporter visited the filling station, the clearing adjacent to the NNPC mega station was filled with customers, some on the less than straight queue, some standing by seeking favour from the motley crowd of military and paramilitary officers loitering about in the area. Every now and then a customer seeking favour would be told off by an attendant that had had enough of people bypassing the queue.
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But in spite of that some customers were able to climb the low fence that surround the filling station to send their jerry cans in to the station without following the interminably slow queue. Others who couldn't take the risk stuck to the queue hoping against hope that somehow a "miracle" will cause them to get the product.
Selective service...
Adeleke Bire was one of the people on the queue. He was not happy with the immobility of the queue. " In fact we are suffering for kerosene every day. See as we queue up since morning. Some people have been here since five o' clock. They have not gotten till now. When they come here, they will pick one, one, one round, help them go inside and sell to them. Still, we are waiting."
He said he only went to the NNPC because it was the only one selling at the N50 official price.
" I have been here since morning around after seven. I always come once in a while, not every time. It is fifty naira here per litre, outside it is N150 to N170 per litre.
Talking about how he felt, the man said in indignation wrapped with resignation: "In fact, it is terrible. See the sun is now shining, everybody is suffering."
Watch Adeleke Bire here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxCbibG00Lw
Other customers who spoke to our reporter said they had to grapple with the cost of transporting themselves to and from the filling station even when the hope of getting the fuel was faint.
Godwin was one of them. "I live at Lugbe," he said. "My office is near secretariat. Some time I trek to this place. My office is not too far from here. I am not well-paid in the kind of job I am doing. So, I can't just be spending money all the time. People that come all the way from Mararraba, Yanyya and co, you know, they spend money and at the end of the day, they will not get even the one they will use to buy kerosene. But now things are improving now."
" I came here as early as 8.00 am. The time is now few minutes to eleven. I don't really feel fine. By the time it gets to the end and we do not get, one will feel bad. But the way it is going now, it will get to my turn."
Steven Emmanuel echoed Godwin's despair. "I have been here since seven o'clock," he said. "It is somehow serious because we have been standing under sun, and from that time till now the sun is hurting us, and we are still standing. And the worse of it is that we don't even know whether we will have it today because the other day I came here and waited till around two o'clock. The sun was too much, and I left."
" Sometimes you come, you will be lucky and you buy. It has been long that I bought it here. I have been trying over three days now. I will come and sit here from morning till two o'clock. I decided to buy here because over there where I am staying in Mararraba, it is N150, but here it is N50 per litre."
" So, any time I am off duty, I will just come and try my luck. If I get it, then that will help me may be for the next two months."
"I don't have hope that I will get it. Sometimes as we are queuing now they will just come and pick somebody."
(http://dailytrust.com.ng/images/stories/those%20that%20were%20able%20to%20make%20it%20in%20to%20the%20nnpc%20mega%20station%20among%20the%20kerosene%20buyers.jpg)
A distant view of those that were able to make it in to the premises of the NNPC mega station
Muhammad Bello, who apparently buys it to sell in the black market, said he had not been lucky for the past three weeks.
"I am from Karmajiji," he explained. "I paid a hundred naira to come here through bus. I will pay the same thing to go back. I am not certain that I will get the product. I have been coming here for the past three weeks now without kerosene."
"I am coming here every day because there is no work. It is only when we come here that we are able to get what we will use to feed our family."
"If am not able to get, I am not happy. I just go back a sad person because I am not being treated well. It is good for them to treat one justly. If they see that one has come twice or thrice, he should be given. But they wouldn't give him because there are the better-off that they give, not us."
Omo Aneje, another customer, also expressed the same despair when asked about his hope for getting kerosene. "That is what I can't tell now," he said "because we come here sometimes, one week, two weeks, we cannot get it. Not up to a week, but for some of us when we come, we don't get and we don't care to come back again. So, we only come any time we have enough time. If we don't have enough time, we don't come."
The failure of Kerosene Direct
About a year ago when Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation in conjunction with Capital Oil and Gas launched the direct sales of kerosene to the consumers and some state governors did the same with much fanfare, not many people believed that the programme would be dead on arrival. But the scarcity didn't stop.
But since last year the scarcity has shown no sign of abating. The NNPC blames it on retailers who refuse to sell at the official price and the smuggling of the products to neighbouring countries by greedy marketers.
Efforts to get the reason for the continued scarcity of the commodity from NNPC spokes person, Levi Ajuonuma, failed as he didn't respond to the text message sent to him, and the calls placed to his line didn't go through.
Daily Trust