In Abuja, Fuel Queues Still Long But Orderly

Chineme Okafor in Abuja

Although the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, on Tuesday said that queues by motorists and other petrol users for fuel at filling stations in the federal capital city, Abuja, would begin to ease off from Wednesday, there were still queues in the city and its environs.

Notwithstanding, the long queues in most of the stations visited by THISDAY on Wednesday were orderly as against what it was like last week when it was almost total chaos.

Kachikwu had on Tuesday said: “Hopefully by tomorrow through Thursday the fuel queues in Abuja should be over, hopefully the same thing will happen to Lagos and thereafter, by the weekend, we should see Kano, Katsina, Sokoto and Port Harcourt and Warri get off this state.”

Even when THISDAY checks in the city centre showed that queues at filling stations had particularly reduced when compared to the situation last week, a similar situation could not be said to exist in the city’s immediate environs.

There were hundreds of motorcyclists and tricycle operators and motorists on long queues at some of the filling stations that dispensed petrol along the Nyanya/Mararaba part of the Abuja-Keffi Expressway. They were all waiting to buy from stations that had products to sell.

Also, the filling stations that are operated by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) all around the city were heavily surrounded by people who queued for fuel. Other stations owned by the major oil marketers also had similar kinds of queues.