Motorists in Kano State are buying the Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) as high as N340 per litre.

The oil marketers were dispensing the product at chosen prices, despite the intervention of the Department of State Services (DSS) to bring the nationwide fuel scarcity under control.

Observation across filling stations in major locations in the metropolis indicated a mixture of long and light queues of motorists.

At stations along Zoo, Zaria and Maiduguri roads within Kano, motorists who bought the product in light queues paid between N310 and N340 per litre.

However, those who patronised few stations like AA Rano, Maikifi and NNPC within the same axes spent several productive hours in long queue to buy the product between N185 and 210.

It was observed that some of the filling stations that have the product would shut down their premises during the day, but dispense in the night at outrageous price.

Some motorists said they were left with no other option than to buy the product at the black market to avoid the long queues at the filling stations.

A resident, Isa Idris, blamed marketers for the scarcity.

But former National Treasurer of Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), Abdullahi Maikifi, told The Guardian that government should rather be blamed for the high cost of fuel, especially in Kano.

According to him, it is near impossible for marketers to sell at the regulated price of N186 per litre when they lifted the product at N215 from Lagos.

He maintained that marketers spend more transporting the product from Lagos to the North and even amid risk of insecurity and bad road network.

On the way forward, Maikifi said until Nigeria starts refining its fuel from crude oil that it has in abundance, the cost of refined fuel would remain high.

(The Guardian)