The Independent Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) President, Lawson Obasi, yesterday revealed that the disunity in the association, which denied its members petroleum products allocation contributed to the lingering fuel scarcity.
Speaking with journalists in Abuja, Obasi assured the citizenry that upon the return of peace to the association, fuel scarcity would become history.
He said: “This problem that has engulfed the IPMAN for quite a long time is one of the causes of this scarcity. I can assure you that with this peace, there will be no scarcity anymore.”
According to him, 60 per cent of the downstream petroleum market-retail outlets and stations and 10,000 workers are of the IPMAN that were faced with a prolonged crisis .
“ We control over 60% of the retail outlets across the nation. And our members are so wide. We have over 10,000 members and over 30,000 petrol stations throughout the nation,” he said.
During the crisis, said Obasi, the members could not get its allocations from the Pipeline Product Marketing Company (PPMC) which resulted in giving allocations solely to Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN) and Depot and Petroleum Products Marketers Association of Nigeria (DPPMA) that were coincidentally on strike.