Fuel scarcity looms as IPMAN threatens to shut filling stations

By ISA ABDULSALAMI AHOVI, Jos

Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) has threatened to shut down all filling stations across the country and cut down supplies from tomorrow, should the Federal Government and the Inspector General of Police (IGP) fail to address illegalities by the police.

The National Public Relation Officer (PRO) of IPMAN, Yakubu Suleiman, disclosed this yesterday to journalists in Jos, Plateau State.

Some police officers had, last Friday, sieged the IPMAN National Secretariat for undisclosed reasons.

However, the IPMAN PRO said following the illegal clampdown on the secretariat by the police, on spurious allegations, its members and officials at states, zonal and depots levels, held series of meetings and threatened to shut down filling stations.

“There is subsisting Supreme Court judgment of December 2018 that have since disposed off Suit No. SC15/2015, and ordered that Mr. Chinedu Okoronkwo to be our President and Alhaji Danladi Pasali,as National secretary.

“The continued violation of this judgment, even by the police, is causing more harm to the downstream sector of the petroleum industry, which, if not halted, will lead to impunity and anarchy,” he said.

He frowned on the siege the police laid to the secretariat, noting that similar impunity had in the past led to the closure of Suleja depot.

If not for the national secretariat’s intervention, supply to Abuja and other places would have been truncated, he added.

“It is true that members of IPMAN in many states of Nigeria have met, while others are meeting and communicating to us that they will shut down, from Tuesday. The implication would be shortage or fuel scarcity in the country,” he said.

According to the IPMAN PRO, the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), the National Assembly and the IGP, must act urgently to avert the hardship the action may visit on Nigerians.

“We are calling on all arms of government and the security agencies to take the necessary action towards halting impunity in the downstream sector of the petroleum industry,” he said.(The Guardian)