- * Wants FG To Stabilise Oil Sector Before 2023 General Election
By Princess Simon (Bureau Chief North Central, in Minna)
The Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) Minna Depot, has dissociated itself from the warning strike, between 5th and 8th of this month September, over lingering crisis in the oil sector, by a group under the aegis, Northern Petroleum Marketers (NPM).
Northern Petroleum Marketers is calling for a 3-day warning strike over unpaid bridging claims, but the IPMAN Chairman, Minna Depot, Alhaji Adamu Erena, said he has nothing whatsoever linked to the call by the group.
Erena in an interview in Minna said the NPM, as a factional petroleum marketers body is claiming Northern extraction most likely will not achieve desired goal of calling out strike, “they cannot get the desired results hence must unite to achieve the goals of IPMAN”.
The Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) is indebted to marketers through the Petroleum Equalization Fund (PEF) to the tune of over N600 billion, but because the strike was not well planned, achieving desired result to me will not be possible, he said.
Lamenting the failure of the NNPC and the federal government to refine PMS in Nigeria and the continued importation of refined products, Erena said it is worrisome that the products were being sold to private depots at unofficial price and this, according to him, is further causing availability of the products at various unapproved rates.
The Minna depot IPMAN chairman therefore called on the federal government, to, as a matter of urgency, ensure stability in the oil industry by removing the petroleum subsidy before the 2023 general elections in order to avoid politicizing the policy thereby creating bigger problems for the citizenry.
Failure to ensure stability in the Nigeria’s oil sector before next year’s election, Adamu Erena said, he foresees a situation whereby the industry will not only be hijacked by politicians but creating more confusion capable of snowballing into bigger challenges. NNL.
