ENUGU, Nigeria (VOICE OF NAIJA)- Chief Timipre Sylva, Nigeria’s Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, has said that the recent shortage of petrol across the country is not political.
Sylva assured consumers that the Federal Government has taken adequate steps to improve supply of the product.
He also told consumers that normalcy has returned and would be sustained prior to and after the general elections.
The Minister revealed this to journalists in Abuja after visiting some petrol stations over the weekend.
Aside the control of the government for the scarcity of petrol, he also blamed some factors, which according to him are beyond human control.
According to him: “Mr. President directed that we must ensure that the fuel supply situation is normalized quickly and that is why I have to leave everything I am doing to ensure that we are able to sort out this problem.
“You can see that a lot has been done and all hands have been on deck. NNPC Limited, NMDPRA and everybody in the supply chain have really come together to see that this problem is resolved.
“It is unfortunate a few people tried to think that there is politics involved but this has nothing to do with politics, I can assure you. When problems like this you try to find out what caused it. It might be due to natural disaster like we had with the flood and anything can trigger it.
“We are not saying we have control of all the factors because there are natural factors that we are not in control of but as far as the factors that we are in control of, we are now in control of those factors. I can assure you that between now and the elections, and beyond we will not have these queues anymore.”
On the long term solution to the crisis, the Minister disclosed that the government has invested heavily in the rehabilitation of the nation’s four refineries, pointing out when the repairs are concluded, coupled with the government 20 percent stake in Dangote Refinery, petrol would be readily available.
“The government is seriously engaged in the rehabilitation of the refineries. The Port Harcourt refinery is at advanced stage, the Kaduna refinery has just been awarded and we are hoping that we will beat the deadline. Warri refinery rehabilitation is also progressing well and we have to take 20 percent stake in Dangote refinery. There are also modular refineries coming on stream.
“These are effort by the government to ensure that this problem is solved permanently. This is not something that can be achieved by the waving of a magic wand. But I can assure you that when everything come together, Nigerians will have President Buhari to thank for it because has laid the foundation for the final resolution of this problem,” he added.