Fuel Scarcity: Black Marketers Resort To Sharp Practices in Jos

By Jide Afolabi, Jos

An Opel Car Captured Offloading From The Constructed Tank In The Boot Into 20 Litres Yellow Gallons

Black marketers have resorts to sharp practices in Jos to buy petroleum at filling stations.

A visit to filling stations by CityMirrorNews Correspondent revealed that queues in few filling stations that have the product are very long with some motorists sleeping on the queues.

For instance, the NNPC station located few yards away from the popularly Secretariat Junction in Jos that has fuel and sells at regulated price of 145 naira had a queue that is a kilometre long. The queues at the station passed the gate of the Plateau State Polytechnic.

Other stations owned by major marketers have designed a means of not selling fuel in the day time. They sells fuel only in the night at exorbitant rates while stations owned by independent marketers sells between 200-210 naira per litre.

Agents of the Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR, have not been seen in town for a while to check the hoarding of the product and exorbitant rate by the filling stations.

Meanwhile, black marketers in the tin city have designed a new means of buying the product from filling stations. They are currently constructing tanks in their car boots. The tanks are connected to the mouth of the fuel tank.

Some of the tanks are big enough with the capacity to store 300-400 litres. Some have bigger capacity.

CityMirrorNews Correspondent caught up with some of them at the popular West of Mines area of Jos, the state capital, where these black marketers are offloading from the tanks in their boots to gallons.

Specifically, an Opel car with registration number LGT 27 XA was captured offloading from the constructed tank in the boot into 20 litres yellow gallons.

The black marketers are currently selling a 4 litres gallon between 2000-2200 naira.

Residents have lamented the unavailability of the product in the state and high price where available. Most residents only get the products from black marketers who sells at exorbitant prices.

They complained on high price of transport and other commodities as a result of the fuel scarcity. They however appealed to the government to resolve the fuel crises in the country as soon as possible.