Palpable fears gripped residents of Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital, of an impending fuel scarcity in the state.
Sunrise News checks around the Lagos metropolis showed that while some fuel stations were closed; long queues were seen in many other filling stations.
For example, areas like Lekki Phase 1 and 2 are witnessing long queues. Other areas are Ajah and environs. Also, noticeably long queues were observed around other parts of the metropolis such as Gbagada and Oshodi. It was also observed that there are no uniformity in price of fuel in some filling stations. It was observed while some are selling at #162 per litre; others are selling at #165 or #167 per litre.
Our correspondents also observed that there are slight increases in transport fares in some areas. For example, commuters from Sanya, a suburb of Lagos, were made to pay #400 instead of the normal price of #300 to Gbagada.
Also, from Oshodi to Gbagada, some commercial motorists charge #150 instead of #100; while commuters going to Berger paid #300 instead of the usual #200 .
With reports of an intending nationwide strike by petroleum dealers, citizens are apprehensive that if nothing is done by the Federal Government, the situation will degenerate further.
Meanwhile, economic observers are of the opinion that the postponement of the removal of the fuel subsidy might be exploited by petroleum marketers to inflict more pain on Nigerians in the form of periodic scarcity of petrol.
They called on the federal government to put some measures to avert such occurrence