TIME, they say, is money. But in Nigeria, where over 70 million of the population live below the poverty line, citizens are devoting more time searching for fuel due to a biting scarcity that has lingered for weeks.

Caught again in the throes of fuel scarcity, queues have returned to filling stations across Nigeria, and its price has surged in many areas.

Motorists are forced to spend hours in the sweltering heat, waiting in line for fuel, thereby losing man-hours ordinarily spent working.

Forty-one-year Chinedu Okeke is a bike man who transports passengers along the streets of Lugbe to eke out a living.

Okeke requires at least five litres of petrol to run his business daily. But in recent weeks, fueling his bike has become an arduous task owing to the current scarcity of fuel in Nigeria. He told The ICIR that he now spends the better part of his work hours at filling stations.

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“Sometimes I get to the filling station in the morning, and spend about five hours there. Before I get fuel, people have already left the streets, so there is little time left to work and I am making less money,” he said.

The current scarcity is attributed to about 100 million litres of contaminated fuel imported into the country by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and its allied firms.

Volumes of fuel were recalled from the market, which resulted in reduction in the quantity of petrol in circulation.

Before the scarcity, Okeke had been earned an average of N3500 every day. But the loss of valuable time to fuel queues has resulted in decline in his income. He is concerned that if the scarcity persists for much longer, he may find it difficult to pay his house rent, which expires in two months.

In early February, the NNPC had promised that petrol would become available again within a short while, but the situation has only worsened with the scarcity entering its sixth week.

Fuel queues still stretch for miles away from filling stations, resulting in congestion on the roads and frustrating transporters and commuters.

Some transporters have devised other strategies to cope with the declining income caused by the scarcity.

For Baba Abdulwasiu, a taxi driver who plies the Life-Camp-Wuse axis in Abuja, the scarcity has led to extra hours of work to make up for time spent on fuel queues.

“Before, I used to go home with N6,000- N6,500 after buying fuel in a day. Now, we waste so much time at the filing stations. One can stay there a whole day without working. So I have to work till night to make that same amount,” he said.

READ MORE HERE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/recurring-fuel-scarcity-cripples-businesses-endangers-lives/