Minister of State for Petroleum, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, appeared before the Senate Committee on Petroleum Resources ( Downstream ) on Tuesday, to explain reasons for the acute fuel scarcity across the country and the efforts being made by his ministry to resolve the embarrassing phenomenon.
He lamented the situation and apologised to Nigerians who are really going through difficult situation and promised that the scarcity will end on or before the 7th of April.
He said, “I share the pains of Nigerians. I feel that pain everyday. Those who are following my trajectories since I resumed office would see that even on the Christmas day, I was at the refineries. On the Easter day, I was in Lagos, monitoring fuel distribution at the depots.
“I have given 24/7 attention to the problem in this industry which were unbelievable. I have continued to work with one sole purpose in mind, which is that every problem will have a solution.
“I do apologise if a comment I made jocularly with my friends in the press about being a magician offends some Nigerians, it wasn’t meant to be. I did go ahead to explain what needed to be done. I didn’t intend to create this kind of hyperbole that it did.
“Let me admit that I am not a typically experienced politician. I am a technocrat, Some of the phraseologies that I may use while being acceptable in the arena in which I play, obviously will not be acceptable in the public political arena. If anybody’s sensitivities were offended by that, I totally apologise, I am a very humble person even imagining the thought that I dictate to Nigerians. I am not somebody like that.”
Kachikwu attributed the current fuel scarcity to lack of importation by the major oil marketers; diversion of the products by marketers; pipeline vandalism; panic buying and non computerisation of distribution network to monitor trucks.
He lamented that since the payment of N600bn arrears of unpaid subsidy which the current administration inherited from the Former President Goodluck Jonathan administration, which ended the subsidy regime, oil marketers had stopped fuel importation.
The development, he said, had forced the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, to overstretched its capacity, human resources and facilities to bridge the gap but it is obvious that it lacked the immediate capacity to handle.
