Fuel scarcity: IPMAN threatens shutdown over DSS ultimatum

The Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) in Ogun State has threatened to shut down all its outlets across the state over the ultimatum issued to marketers by the Department of State Security (DSS).

DSS had last week given the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) and oil marketers a 48-hour ultimatum to make petrol, available across Nigeria in wake of the fuel scarcity. 

But, IPMAN while reacting to the DSS ultimatum in a statement signed by its chairman, Femi Adelaja, on Wednesday said the security agency had failed “in its sense of reasoning with genuine business operators who do not get the product from government’s depot to sell same at government approved price.”

Adelaja urged security operatives to rather go after those making supplies difficult for IPMAN members.

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The statement read, “Rather than for the security operatives to go after those who are making supplies difficult for IPMAN members, they have chosen the path of dishonour by threatening to go after IPMAN members, whose businesses survive on loans and other credit facilities provided by commercial banks at a not-too-friendly interest rate.

“If any of the law enforcing agencies in Nigeria is genuinely concerned about the security of the country, they should go after the NNPCL officials and ensure that they make the product available for independent marketers at the already agreed price and desist from the unnecessary ranting ‘of a wounded lion.”

The association warned the DSS to reverse its earlier position of clamping down on IPMAN members, and apologise to Nigerians for its action or else “would be left with no alternative than to close all our outlets across Ogun State.”