Olusola Bello
The petrol queues have spread across at various filling stations in Lagos and its environs and it is causing panic among consumers that feared that this could be the beginning of another round of fuel scarcity.
By midday yesterday the situation has become very chaotic at most filling stations in Lagos with motorists and other consumers alike that buy fuel to power their generators struggling to outshine each other at the filling stations across the metropolis.
The problem however is pinned down to the alleged bad fuel that was discharged into the storage facilities of one of the major oil marketers in Apapa, Lagos.
The product is said to have contained high content of methanol and Ethanol, which are outside the official specification of Nigeria’s petrol.
“This product is highly harmful to the market,” a source states.
Industry sources in the downstream sector confirms the development, adding that the NNPC is doing everything possible to make sure the product is withdrawn from the market so to reduce the damage the product could cause.
The issue of dirty petrol is coming at a time when the controversy on the petrol subsidy removal or otherwise still rages on.
NNPC recently advised the Nigerian public not to panic as there is enough fuel to go round.
Queues were noticed at areas like Ojota, some areas of Ikeja, Alapere, and ikorodu road just to mention a few.