Date: 2022-03-07

The Kwara State Council of the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, has accused major marketers of diverting between 60 to 70 percent of petrol to the state, to private owned filling stations as their parent companies must not know they dispense above authorised official pump price of the product.

The NLC state chairman, Comrade Isa Ore, in a statement in Ilorin on Monday, alleged that the unwholesome activities of the fuel dealers had led to a steep rise in the number of black marketers within the Ilorin metropolis now selling at different outrageous prices.

Ore called on the state government to set up a task force to monitor the diversion of fuel supply to the state, complaining that the development has compounded the scarcity of the product in the state.

He said some fuel stations now sell to black marketers of the product at the dead hours of the night with attendants and workers of the fuel stations dominating the black market business.

The NLC chairman urged the state government to work in synergy with the relevant agencies in the downstream oil sector industry to put a stop to sale of fuel in kegs pending the end to the lingering fuel crisis.

DAILY POST reports that fuel stations owned by independent marketers in Ilorin, sell fuel at between N200, N230, or N250 per litre, while major marketers, BOVAS and Rainoil filling stations still sell at the official pump price of N165 per litre.

However, as the fuel scarcity persists across the country, it has continued to bite harder in Ilorin, as black marketers of the product have taken over the business and sell at N2,000 or N2,500 per keg of five litres within Ilorin metropolis.

Despite the monitoring and warnings by concerned authorities and agencies, black marketers are having a field day and could be located along Post Office, Murtala Muhammed road and Maraba-Zango axis in the Ilorin metropolis selling the product freely without hindrance to needy buyers.