The National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) and the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association (IPMAN) are bracing for a fight with the government over back door hikes in the price of fuel.
Diesel now sells for N145 per litre in most parts of the South West, including Lagos, the country’s commercial hub.
It sells for as much as N270 per litre in the North.
The supply of petrol has been declining gradually, as the output from the refineries in Port Harcourt, Kaduna, and Warri cannot meet local demand; although the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and marketing companies import products.
Retail outlets in Lagos and Port Harcourt owned by NUPENG and IPMAN members have since raised pump prices, blaming supply shortfalls, after the NNPC reduced their allocations from 300,000 litres to 15,000 litres.
“Most of our members have stopped selling the products, because they are not available,” an IPMAN member said in Lagos on Tuesday.
An official of the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) blamed rises in the prices of diesel and kerosene on market forces “resulting from the withdrawal of subsidy on the two products due to their deregulation.”
IPMAN argued that the price of petrol may follow suit soon.
But its Mosimi Depot Chairman, Adebisi Bada, warned that any official increase in price “would meet a brick wall. We would react at the appropriate time. What is happening now may be a prelude to the plan by the government to hike the price of petrol.”
IPMAN has already begun a strike in Awka, though Bada said this is not connected with the agitation for a decrease in the prices of kerosene and diesel, “as the national body has yet to conclude on what to do.”
He acknowledged that the government may be tactically implementing the ‘no hike in fuel price until after one year’ agreement it had with Labour in June last year, but stressed that anything can happen “now that the one year is over.”
NUPENG branch of IPMAN has, in the same vein, called on the government to investigate the reduced supply from the NNPC.
An official of IPMAN lamented that “the hike has been successfully imported through the back door, and the majority of Nigerians will not notice until the price of petrol is raised too.
“By that time, the argument would be that the hike in the prices of diesel and kerosene is as a result of market forces, which should also affect petrol.”
A communique issued at the end of a meeting of the South West zone of IPMAN at the weekend condemned the sale of diesel and kerosene at exorbitant rates at private depots in Lagos and Port Harcourt, and frowned at the shortage in government-owned depots.
The communique was signed by IPMAN Zonal Chairman, Oluleye Olayemi, and Secretary, Adetunji Azeez.
It declared IPMAN’s resolution to flay any government policy it considers detrimental to national development.
It also condemned the N2.5 million levy the Oyo State Government imposed on IPMAN members to build a new filling station.