Fuel scarcity: Why oil markers can’t be punished – Kachikwu

Ibe Kachikwu, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, has given reason why petroleum marketers allegedly responsible for hoarding fuel during the Yuletide season can’t be punished by government.

 

The Minister said there was no single evidence that marketers were hoarding petroleum products and as such, they could not be punished.

Kachikwu made the disclosure after a Federal Government delegation led by the Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari, Abba Kyari, and fuel marketers as well the heads of the Department of State Services and the Nigeria Immigration Service, and representatives of other paramilitary services met at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

Addressing State House Correspondents after the meeting, Kachikwu said the parley was not a fault-finding one but meant to find a lasting solution to the problem of fuel scarcity.

According to the Minister, “This is a major concern that Nigerians should not be made to suffer, that Nigerians do not get through the kind of thing they went through this December.

“We want to find a lasting solution and that is what the committee will come out with in the resolutions tomorrow (Wednesday).

“The thing is even the Nigerians, who have suffered, will want to be sure that we find a lasting solution and find evidential basis upon which to punish people.

“This is a democratic government. I don’t have one (evidence) yet; if you have one, I will like to have it.”