As fuel scarcity bites harder in Hadejia, Jigawa, the price of a litre of petrol has risen to N300, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports.
A correspondent of NAN reports that many petrol stations in Hadejia had no product to sell at the time of this report.
Petro is only available at black markets where it sold at N300 per litre, well above the N87 approved pump price.
The situation has led to drastic drop in the number of commercial buses on roads in the area.
Malam Ibrahim Hassan, a commercial bus driver, said that he was experiencing difficulties getting petrol to buy.
Hassan said that the situation was affecting his daily revenue as “I am spending much on fuel due to the lingering scarcity. “
The driver said that he had resorted to carrying more passengers to make up for the expenses on fuel.
“I am overloading passengers to avoid incurring losses. “
Malam Baballe Haruna, the Treasurer, National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) in the area, condemned the non-availability of petrol in the area.
Haruna said that the trend had exposed members of the union to hardships, adding that most of them had parked their vehicles.
He appealed to the Federal Government to adopt practical measures to end scarcity of petroleum products in the country.
While scarcity persists, the Federal Government on Monday said Nigerians who have been bearing the brunt of the current fuel scarcity across the country were paying for the sins of the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said this while answering questions from the State House correspondents at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Mohammed was asked what he would be telling Nigerians that had been complaining that long fuel queues being witnessed was not the kind of change they envisaged when they voted the President Muhammadu Buhari-led All Progressives Congress government in March.
The minister said one of the major causes of the current fuel scarcity was the failure of Jonathan’s administration to make adequate provision for fuel subsidy.
He explained that out of the N674bn supplementary budget recently presented to the National Assembly, N522bn was for arrears of fuel subsidy which was incurred by the last administration.
He said, “What I will be telling Nigerians is that what we met on ground is such that we are paying for the sins of the last administration. I am being very serious.
“You remember that about two weeks ago, we had to go to the National Assembly for a supplementary budget of N674bn.
“Of that figure, N522bn was for arrears of fuel subsidy which was incurred as far back as August last year. One of the reasons for the fuel scarcity was the inability of the last government to make adequate provision for fuel subsidy. We do face some other logistics problems, but majorly, we are paying for the sins of the last administration.”
