Fuel price have hit an all time high of N300 per litre in Jigawa state, the scarcity keeps biting hard as many petrol stations in Hadejia have no product to sell. According to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), petrol is only available at black markets where it is sold at N300 per litre, which is way above the N87 approved pump price. Commercial buses are the worst hit, as the situations has led to drastic drop in the number of vehicles plying the roads. Malam Baballe Haruna, the treasurer, National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW), condemned the non-availability of petrol in the area.
Haruna informed that the trend had exposed members of the union to hardships, adding that most of them had parked their vehicles. The NURTW treasurer urged the federal government to adopt practical measures which will see an end to the hardship stirred in the nation by scarcity of fuel and other petroleum products.
One resident who spoke to pressmen, Malam Ibrahim Hassan, said that he was experiencing difficulties getting petrol to buy. The commercial bus driver, said that the situation was affecting his daily revenue as he was spending much on fuel due to the lingering scarcity. Hassan said that he had resorted overloading his bus, to make up for the expenses on fuel.
It will be recalled that on Tuesday, December 22, President Muhammadu Buhari in presenting the 2016 Budget to the joint session of the National Assembly, apologised to Nigerians over the persisted fuel scarcity experienced across the country since October. He blamed the scarcity on stakeholders in the petroleum industry who according to him have refused to embrace change. The president however assured that he had ordered the PPPRA to keep the selling price for all marketers of petrol at N87 per liter for now.