NIGERIANS are to blame for the current scarcity due to panic. Nigerians woke up last week, panicked so much that they collectively agreed to purchase more fuel than they needed. Before the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation realised the ploy, fuel scarcity had overtaken the country.
Panic buying, according to NNPC, was responsible for the scarcity that hit all parts of the country.
Nigerians are wondering how a product that is unavailable in the petrol stations is on the streets, for the highest bidders. NNPC however sticks to its story claiming its panic buying.
Economic and social activities have slowed down. Losses from almost a week of fuel shortages would run into billions of Naira. Small businesses would hurt more. The jump in inflation figures is predictable. None of these affects those who got the country into this mess.
What is so difficult about importing and distributing fuel since the official position is that Nigerians cannot refine fuel for their own uses?
Can those who stand against domestic refining of products now argue that they cannot fund product importation? The debate is not the same as increasing the pump price, a pet project of another group that posits that Nigerian refineries can only work, if fuel prices in Nigeria are the same as the international price of the product.
If panic buying caused the disruption of economic and social life in the past one week, government has a huge responsibility of attending to it in the same emergency manners security operations demand.