The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has assured Nigerians that the issues of long fuel queues and petrol scarcity across the country will disappear by the weekend.

Group Managing Director of the Corporation, Dr Maikanti Baru, gave the assurance on Wednesday while addressing reporters in Abuja.

According to him, NNPC is winning the war and putting in place adequate measures to ensure the product is easily accessible to the people in all parts of the country.

“I promise by weekend, most of the abrasions we’ve been noticing will disappear. You could see that we are winning the war,” Baru said.

“The (fuel) queues have significantly subsided in Abuja; In Lagos, they’ve almost become none existent and, of course, we are pushing it to the other cities as well as to the hinterlands.”

The NNPC boss addressed in the outskirts of Abuja, where he had gone to shut down another illegal petrol station.

He also accused some petroleum marketers of diverting trucks conveying products meant for the Federal Capital Territory to some other parts of the country.

Baru, however, said trucks leaving depots are being monitored, just as more 110 trucks have been dispatched to the nation’s capital and its environs.

He said: “Outside Abuja, we have gotten a lot of improvements. Also in terms of distribution, we are monitoring every dispatch from the depots and also from Suleja to the various centres.

“Today alone as of noon, we have gotten over 110 trucks that have been dispatched to Abuja and environs.”

The assurance comes one day after the Depot and Petroleum Products Marketers Association (DAPPMA) said were no products in their tanks, although they could not confirm NNPC’s claims of having sufficient product stock.

DAPPMA Executive Secretary, Mr Olufemi Adewole, had said in a statement on Tuesday blamed the fuel crisis on the inability of the Direct Sales Direct Purchase (DSDP) partners of the Corporation to deliver on their business obligations.

In a swift reaction, NNPC said the claims were “unfounded and self-indicting”, accusing DAPPMA members of patronising the same DSDP international counterparts.

In a statement issued by its Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Mr Ndu Ughamadu, NNPC said it has supplied appreciable volume of petroleum products to DAPPMA and other relevant bodies in its bid to rid the fuel challenges in the country.

The statement read in part: “NNPC regrets that DAPPMA, which members had taken receipts of products from Petroleum Products Marketing Company (PPMC), a subsidiary of NNPC and owe the company to the tune of N26.7billion as at December 21, 2017, has the audacity to indict NNPC unjustifiably.

“Despite the concession by the government giving access to DAPPMA to obtain Forex at an official rate of N305 per dollar for PMS import, their members have not been able to do so, leaving NNPC as the sole supplier of PMS to the Nigerian market.” (Channels TV)

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