Residents face hard times as kerosene now goes for N250 per litre

Sokoto – Residents of Sokoto now face hard times as the scarcity of kerosene continues to disrupt their daily activities, an investigation has revealed.

The residents have been forced into purchasing the commodity in the black market at an exorbitant price, with a four-litre gallon selling for between N900 and N1,000.

Investigation shows that this is because the commodity was only available at the NNPC Mega Station located along Kano road in Sokoto, where a four-litre gallon goes for N200.

But while the commodity is available for sale at this station, getting it was a problem as a chaotic situation was always the order of the day in view of the volume of demand.

Prospective buyers were seen scrambling for the commodity at the mega station on Friday, despite the presence of many security officials in their various uniforms.

However, in spite of this large presence of uniformed men, the fact that they are there with their spouses who were with gallons and looking for kerosene to buy has not helped matters.

Also  discovered that there was a good presence of touts who usually buy the commodity from the mega station at the controlled price of N50 per litre only to re-sell it at N250 per litre.

A cross-section of the city’s residents, speaking on the development, however appealed to the state government to urgently come to their aid by ensuring the availability of the product.

Some of the fuel station operators also lamented the situation, saying it was not appropriate that only the NNPC Mega Station was being supplied the kerosene commodity in the city.

The proprietor of the station, Alhaji Ibrahim Sarkin-Gobir, however denied that his station was getting favours from the NNPC to the disadvantage of other fuel station owners in Sokoto.

“I am not getting any special favours from the NNPC in the supply of any brand of petroleum products . These allegations are baseless and unfounded,’’ he said.

The Sokoto Zonal Controller of the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), Alhaji Umaru Moriki, declined to comment on the matter.(NAN)