The lingering fuel scarcity in Abuja, is deeply eating into the profit margin of business owners in Kubwa laments Ms. Jima, the General manager of NINA Hotel & Gardens, phase 4, Kubwa.
According to the manager, despite NINA operating mostly with diesel powered generators, there are other sections of the hospital that is lit up by petroleum powered generators.
Operators of other business establishments we visited, expressed the same worry and blamed their inability to provide cold drinks on the epileptic supply of light by AEDC.
All the plazas in Kubwa we visited, were in partial darkness with sound of generators belching thick smoke into the air.
Mama Ngozi, a restaurant operator at Bazango lamented that because of the unsteady light, she cannot preserve condiments she needs for her business. She threatened that if this situation continues, she may be forced to increase her prices, in order to meet up the cost of providing light and passable cold drinks.
A trip around black market operators showed that fuel is being sold between 350-400 naira per liter.
Of all the filing stations in Kubwa, Oando, NNPC, Total, NIPCO and NNPC Arab road, when we visited, it was only Total, Oando and NIPCO that had fuel. There were long queues and the fuel attendants were servicing those with jerrycans while neglecting motorists. Another thing we observed was that, they were not using all the pumps to sell.
A motorist we spoke to, berated the Petroleum minister and wondered why Buhari had not sacked him. When reminded that President Buhari is the petroleum minister, all he could say was, “no wonder, what can you expect from an incompetent man, whose cow does not increase beyond more than 150 every election year.”
