There is currently heavy traffic jams in many parts of Lagos as fuel queues get longer by the day due to petrol scarcity.
Many petrol stations are shut down with the scarcity which began with short queues over the weekend.
Several cars and commercial vehicles have been packed on the road since the scarcity began.
Unusual long queues made worse by panic buyers were seen as filling stations in Ikoyi, Victoria Island and Lekki caused heavy traffic jams.
Gridlocks have been reported also in Ojodu-Berger to Lekki, Gbagada, Alapere, Oshodi-Apapa axis, Ajah, Sangotedo, Mile-2, among others.
The queues have largely spilled onto major roads making vehicular movements difficult for those who do not even intend to buy the product.
There are insinuations that the sudden increased demand for fuel is due to a power outage following a fire incident that led to the shutdown of Nigeria’s largest power plant, Egbin, from the national grid, last week.
However, despite improved power supply across the city yesterday according to reports, just as in other places, there were long queues on Awolowo road in Ikoyi, which caused gridlock along the axis.
Queues are however, just slightly shorter on the mainland part of Lagos making it difficult for people who are returning back to work from the weekend.
Heavy traffic is also witnessed along the Lekki-Epe Expressway, including Sangotedo and Victoria Garden City (VGC) axis.
On the Island (Ikoyi, Victoria Island and Obalende axis), only a few stations had supplied with manageable queues. It was the same situation along the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.
Some commuters resorted to trekking long distances to get to their destinations, while commercial transporters took advantage of the situation to hike transport fares on busy routes. The fare from Ajah to CMS, which, ordinarily, was N400, was hiked to N1,000.
Meanwhile, some of the stations have resolved to attend only to customers buying in jerry cans for the black market business.
Reports made available by The Guardian revealed that there were no queues at filling stations in Mushin, Isolo, Ejigbo, Ikotun and environs.
Reports earlier had claimed that petrol scarcity currently being experienced in Lagos is due to the current effort by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited to recall harmful imported petroleum products.
According to sources, most of the petrol imported into the country under the Direct Sale, Direct Purchase (DSDP) contract has a high content of methanol and ethanol, which are outside the official specification of Nigeria’s petrol. “This product is highly harmful to the market,” The Guardian quoted a source as saying.
A senior official in the downstream sector, who pleaded anonymity, confirmed the development, adding that NNPC is currently doing a product tracing to contain the harmful implication in the market.
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