TheCable

Maikanti Baru, group managing director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), says the monster of petrol scarcity has been tamed.

Baru made this statement when addressing journalists after the Jumat service at the Aso villa mosque on Friday.

Blaming the recent scarcity experienced on players in the oil market, he said normalcy has returned to Abuja, Lagos and some other parts of the country.

“I’m happy to report that we have tamed the monster that reared its head as a result of the rumoured price increase about three weeks ago,” he said.

“Unfortunately, that rumour instigated a lot of marketers to be very greedy and they decided that their fellow citizens should not enjoy the Christmas holiday and New Year with ease and decided to profiteer, starting by hoarding and diversion of products.

“At the beginning, I did address the press, telling the world that we have sufficient products that will last us 30 days through the New Year into January; but because the marketers wanted to inflict harm and pains on fellow citizens, they decided to hoard products, divert them and in some cases, even smuggled products out of the country.

“This has been tamed by the actions we took and I personally led the war around Abuja and other teams led the war in Lagos and other parts of the country.

“As of this (Friday) morning, I have gone round the Abuja metropolis and I have seen that the queues have reduced significantly to almost normal level and few motorists that I heard speaking on morning programmes concerning what I have seen said they have not spent up to 30 minutes to fuel their car.