Fuel Scarcity –Anxious Lagosians Beg Buhari

BY AKINREMI ODUNAYO

Lagosians are anxious about rumours of impending scarcity and hike in fuel prices and are now begging President Muhammadu Buhari to do something about it.

They made their opinions known in an interview conducted by a correspondent of The Eagle .

Oluwafemi  Adewunmi,  a commercial driver who plies the Ogba-Ojota route of the state said that though the product was still available at normal prices in some filling stations, but others are hording it in anticipation of upward jerk in the prices.

He said should there be any such upward adjustment in the price of the commodity, that the negative impact would be very great.

Akanbi Ishola, another commercial bus driver said he was least prepared for any price increases, which he said would be serious.

He expressed concern that issues of this nature were happening even while the new government had not been sworn in, adding that the federal government should take proper stepts towards checkmating the problem of fule availability and pricing.

For Rasheed Babatunde, he was shocked on Friday when the rumours got to him, especially as there was no justification for such a development.

He said it woiuld be injustice on the part of drivers to hike fares on their own, if there was no signal from the fuel suppliers.

He joined in the call on the federal government through its agencies to find a solution to the problem.

In addition to this, Toyosi Oladipupo  a resident of Egbeda lagos state said the scarcity began in her area on Friday and since then there had been serious queues  at the filling stations which has been causing traffic  at Igando road.

She said the filling stations were inflating the prices of petrol which also made commercial drivers inflate the price from  N 100 to N 150 on specific routes.

Her opinion is corroborated by Favour Ogbonna, a student-journalist and a resident of Ayobo, who told The Eagle correspondent the scarcity caused serious traffic on Saturday from iyana ipaja to Ayobo Church Bus stop where she alighted. She said in fact, as at Saturday there was also bus scarcity due to the fuel scarcity, and that the available buses had to inflate their prices because the drivers .

She said the drivers who inflated their fares blamed it on difficulty in obtaining fuel.

They told the reporter that the price of petrol had increased from N 150 to N200 at some filling stations, and that they had no other choice than to add to their normal fare.

On the other hand, Taofeek Ibrahim, who resides at Jakande Housing Estate Lekki Lagos said fares remained normal on his route, and that buses were equally available on the routes.

However, other Lagosians told our reporter that they still looked forward to seeing change in the present situation urging the ghovernment to  intervene in the matter.