The sorrow, tears and agony resulting from the acute fuel scarcity raging across the country seem to be getting worse as the difficulty encountered in obtaining the product has heightened, even up to the Yuletide period.

News Express Correspondent, who monitored the development in Abuja, observed that consumers now resort to the black market for purchase of the product, a situation that enables the black market fuel sellers to attract more patronage than ever before.

In many filling stations visited, consumers expressed their frustration while the commercial drivers have increased their fares.

Worrisome is the fact that people on a daily basis could be noticed bringing their cars to join existing queues, sleeping from night to night, even, in the NNPC filling stations, while awaiting their turns to get fuel into their cars.

According to a commercial driver: “I thought the government said recently that the scarcity would be resolved before the Christmas celebration; but, as far as I know, this is not the Abuja I used to know, things are getting worse in this place and we are fed up.”

He added: “As you can see, I am buying my fuel from the black marketers which is expensive. It is because I cannot go through the pain of queuing for long hours because of fuel.”

Another driver, while expressing dissatisfaction over the situation, angrily said that: “Now, we have a larger number of cars on the street queuing for fuel than normal cars plying the roads. This is just insanity in our system here. It is just also bad that this is happening in a season like this in the country, when people should be moving about freely in their cars.”

“I bought 10 litres of petrol from a black marketer for N2,000, which means a litre is N200, compared to the normal N87 which is the normal price.”

In a related development, many residents have lamented that the current situation has never been witnessed before in the metropolis.

“We have to trek long distances because the transport fare has been increased to almost double price. This is just crazy.”

They alleged that the authorities concerned were not doing enough to frankly explain and address the situation.

However, many Nigerians have urged the government for quick intervention and resolution of whatever is the problem.

They lamented that the scarcity will dampen the frivolities and fun of the yuletide season as people who plan to move around might be disappointed by the increase in the transport fare.

•Photo shows vehicles queuing for fuel at filling station.

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