Over 400 filling stations of independent oil marketers located at border communities have remained shut since 2019 based on the Federal Government?s directive to halt the smuggling of petrol out of Nigeria to neighbouring countries.

While the Nigeria Customs Service declared on Monday that the stations would still be shut, oil marketers decried the closure of these facilities due to the revenue losses caused by the development.

The Customs insisted that it would continue to enforce the closure of the stations and sustain the crackdown on fuel smugglers through its Operation Whirlwind, especially due to the recent intense petrol scarcity in neighbouring Niger Republic.

Petrol scarcity in Niger Republic has made the cost of the product rise to about N8000/litre, a development that could trigger the smuggling of the commodity from Nigeria to the neighbouring nation.

However, the Nigeria Customs Service, through its spokesperson, Abdullahi Maiwada, declared in an interview with one of our correspondents that the NCS would not give room to smugglers, stressing that the agency had been confiscating smuggled petrol across the country?s borders.

?You can see us everywhere seizing smuggled fuel. Be it in Adamawa, Taraba, Kebbi, Seme, everywhere. I think if there is any successful operation, it is this Operation Whirlwind. We are really on them. We will not allow fuel to get out of Nigeria illegally.

?You confirm this from our recent seizures. We are not giving them space to smuggle fuel. And apart from the seizures, we are prosecuting kingpins of these smugglers. In Adamawa, for instance, there are some suspects that we are taking to court.

?So apart from seizing the products, we are getting those responsible for this and we are prosecuting them,? Maiwada stated.

On whether filling stations around border towns are to remain shut, the Customs spokesperson replied, ?Yes they remain shut!?

Marketers said their members who own filling stations in these border communities have been out of business since 2019 when former President Muhammadu Buhari banned the supply of petrol within 20km of the border.

Nigeria shares frontiers with countries like Niger Republic in the North, Benin Republic in the West, Cameroon in the East, and Chad in the North.

All these locations have illegal routes through which smugglers transport subsidised petrol outside the country. The Buhari government was of the view that subsidised fuel meant for Nigerians was being diverted to neighbouring countries by smugglers, leaving the nation in heavy financial burden.

Although the ban reduced fuel smuggling, the impact was not really felt by the benefiting neighbouring countries until May 29, 2023, when President Bola Tinubu declared that ?the fuel subsidy is gone.?

With the removal of subsidies and the activities of the Nigeria Customs Service Operation Whirlwind, countries like Niger were plunged into deep fuel scarcity.

Since the start of March, Niger Republic has been grappling with an unprecedented shortage of the most widely used petrol in the West African country.

Economic activities were brought to a halt as filling stations in Niamey, the capital, and those in other towns ran out of petrol recently.

For several years, the country depended majorly on Nigeria for about 50 per cent of its local fuel consumption, industry players and experts confirmed.

Petrol was usually smuggled into the neighbouring country through illegal routes, but the removal of the fuel subsidy caused a sharp hike in fuel prices, making the smuggling of the product unattractive to illegal traders in border areas.

Though petroleum marketers lauded the government?s efforts towards curbing fuel smuggling, they expressed displeasure with the continued closure of over 400 petrol stations over the past six years.

According to them, the investments of the owners of these filling stations have collapsed while thousands of jobs were lost in a country with a high rate of unemployment.

In an interview with one of our correspondents, the National Publicity Secretary of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, Chinedu Ukadike, said the office of the National Security Adviser initiated the idea to prevent economic sabotage, saying, however, that it is against the Petroleum Industry Act.

According to him, the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority is working with the office of the NSA to review the ban.

?Over 400 were shut since the government banned fuel supply in border communities. Since then, the owners of these filling stations have not been doing anything. But I also know that the office of the NSA has been on that matter. They are working with the NMDPRA to open the filling stations. They are planning to look at the matter.

?It was a measure by the Office of the NSA to ensure that petroleum products are not being smuggled. They want to ensure they are not using those stations to sabotage the economy of Nigeria by processing those products outside the country.

?That was why the NSA brought the Operation Whirlwind, which is empowered to patrol around to ensure that petroleum products are not being moved out of the country,? he said.

However, Ukadike maintained that now that the policy has achieved its objective and the subsidy has been removed, the ban should be lifted, especially as it does not conform with the PIA.

?Now we are seeing the efforts of Operation Whirlwind, they should allow the stations to start selling fuel. In line with the PIA, the customs leading this operation are not empowered to seal filling stations. What they are empowered to do is to impound any truck that is crossing the border.

?The shutting of petrol stations is not necessary because Nigerians are living around the border areas. So, you can?t continue to punish them just because some people are smuggling fuel across the border. The government should empower the customs for proper check, to ensure that no petroleum product crosses the border,? he stated.

Ukadike added, ?We IPMAN members are not in support of the ban on fuel supply in border communities. It is killing the business of those in the areas. The government granted licences to these marketers and later banned fuel supply to those areas. The government should strengthen security and lift the ban.?

The removal of subsidy and the attendant rise in the price of petrol has mounted pressure on Niger?s refinery, which can only produce a few tankers of fuel per day.

The Commercial Director of the state-owned Nigerien Company for Oil Products (Sonidep), Maazou Oumani Aboubacar, confirmed that half of the country?s consumption used to come from Nigeria until this was halted by the current administration.

Aboubacar told AFP that the Soraz refinery in Zinder is the only one in the country, saying it ?can no longer satisfy domestic demand,? which has surged for more than a year now.

The reason is principally down to the drying up of the flourishing black market supplied from neighbouring Nigeria, a major global producer.

It was learnt that the country?s refinery only provides Sonidep with ?25 tanker trucks of petrol a day? when the daily national requirement is up to twice that.

?The fuel that came into Niger illegally from Nigeria represented up to half of the market. It supplied the large regions near the border between the two countries,? Aboubacar was quoted as having said.

With Nigerian smugglers supplying up to 50 per cent of the country?s daily petrol consumption up till 2023, the country?s refinery was producing a little to augment the supply from Nigeria.

However, the country faced the reality after Tinubu removed the fuel subsidy and tightened up the borders.

It was gathered that the fuel crisis in Niger reached alarming proportions last week after a litre of petrol sold for as high as N2,500 to N8,000, depending on the part of the country.

Despite the hostile relationship, the Junta-led Niger later ran to Nigeria to beg for fuel and it was granted 300 trucks by the Federal Government. (The PUNCH)

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