From Abubakar Yunusa Abuja
The Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited says it will ensure the availability of petrol during elections.
Since February 2022, Nigeria has witnessed extended periods of scarcity of petroleum products, especially petrol.
A team from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) led by Mahmood Yakubu, INEC chairperson, visited the NNPC towers in Abuja on Tuesday to discuss the availability of petrol during the forthcoming elections.
Yakubu had earlier said INEC’s logistics arrangements for the elections may be affected by the scarcity of petrol.
Speaking during the meeting, Mele Kyari, NNPC’s group chief executive officer (GCEO), said the company has always, without formal request, supported INEC in making sure that petrol is available for all vehicles involved in the electoral process.
Kyari said while NNPC is the largest downstream company in the country at present, it is possible that there may be some locations where they are not present.
“We’ll work with your logistics team to identify those areas where we may not have presence so that we can bring in other marketing companies into the conversation so that the products are made available to all the 100,000 vehicles that you have indicated,” he said.
“There will be no difficulty doing this. We have presence; we are everywhere. But where we are not, we will provide commercial conversation between the commission and other marketing companies so that when you need this product, you will have it.
“Also, in addition to this, we’re the only company that has floating mega stations in the country. We will also look at this and see how we can make it available for the purpose of the marine operations in the riverine areas of our country.
“I assure you, just as you have indicated, we have taken very extreme measures to see that we can contain the current distribution challenges that we have and we believe that within the next one week, there will be significant relief, if not elimination, of the current situation that we’re facing.
“In respect of that, we’ll make arrangements to make sure their products are made available to your vehicles during the election period or as a build-up to the elections.”
