The recent wave of fuel scarcity being witnessed in the country remains the worst in history as the debacle of the unavailability of the nation’s most sought liquid after water has continued for more than a month with the government not being able to proffer a solution to it talk less of a lasting one.
With the authorities having offered various excuses for the scarcity of petroleum products over the past months, the mess has gotten to a point where the government has exhausted its pool of excuses and is forced to dig deep within its recess to put an end to the menace.
While it would be difficult to totally determine the extent of damage the present scarcity of petroleum products in the country might have caused the nation, the engineering gaps or weaknesses of the country as revealed by the scarcity can easily be identified.
Listed below are some of the engineering deficiencies of the country’s engineering sector and indirectly the Nigerian engineer.
The Refineries are not working: The present fuel scarcity and every other fuel scarcity in the country simply serve as a means of telling Nigerians that the country’s refineries are not working. While the government may have formed a habit of telling Nigerians over the years that the country’s refineries are working to certain capacities over the years and looking to improve upon it, this present fuel scarcity has revealed that the refineries are not working. If the refineries were working to a certain level, they would have been able to supply fuel to meet the demand of a segment of the country’s huge population and its resultant huge demand for fuel in the country.
Since the discovery of oil in the country in 1956 and the production subsequently, Nigeria built refineries in the country numbering four and it is worthy of note to inform that while a great deal of giant strides has been recorded by local engineers in the country, little effort has been committed to the development of maintenance and handling capacities of the refineries by the authorities and concerned bodies which leaves us at the mercy of the foreigners who built the refineries way back in time.
The Pipelines are Non-functional: The country has over the years invested huge sums of money in the construction of oil pipelines across the country for the supply of crude and refined petroleum products. The petroleum pipeline network links the production platforms, refineries and storage depots across the country.
But quite sadly, the pipelines are in bad conditions due to poor maintenance practices and largely vandalism in the recent years. The poor state of the pipeline distribution network in the country has limited the transportation of petroleum products in the country to the use of tankers on road which is not as efficient as the movement of petroleum products through pipelines.

http://go.engineer-ng.net/profiles/blogs/the-nigerian-infrastructural-deficits-exposed-by-the-present-fuel

Great

We are not proactive and we often wait till we get to a stage of dis repair