My Ordeal as Patrol Station Manager says 'FG ordered them not to sell to keg carriers'

Since the beginning of this fuel scarcity, I have remained silent simply because I know in Nigeria it is more like a taboo for us not to have fuel scarcity or hike in price around this time of the year.
Like I use to say, you can’t know my pain unless you wear my shoes and today I wore the shoes of those who have been spending several hours at filling station queuing up just to buy fuel. Normally during this period in Nigeria the petrol attendants are always making more money by extorting the common Nigerians who come to the station with kegs, they would add an addition of either N20 or N50 on every litre someone with a keg wants to buy. For example if the normal pump price during the scarcity is N100, those with keg would pay an extra N20 or N50 on each litre they buy, making it either N120 or N150 per litre.

Yesterday when I was at the filling station, I witnessed something I haven’t witnessed before and I mean it, I haven’t witness where a filling station would refuse to sell fuel to those with kegs. A lot of people voiced their anger and also demanded to know why the attendants were neglecting to sell fuel in their kegs. After much noise, the manager of this particular station came out and he said and I quote “it is an order from the federal government, na dem talk say make we no sell for keg because of black market people, they have closed down NNPC Igando because of this. I am sorry there is nothing I can do, maybe tomorrow we fit sell but not today”. Still after hearing that, most of us still begged that he should at least sell for we that want to buy some quantity like 4, 5 litres but the manager insisted he couldn’t. To cut the long story short an angry entrepreneur who needed 2litres of fuel for his business caused an uproar which eventually stopped the selling of fuel for the day.

This is where I am going with this, if truly the federal government gave the order not to sell fuel to those with kegs then I am sorry to say the federal government wasn't thinking straight or let me say they don't have our interest at heart. Yes we pay more buying from black market but what choice do we have when the filling station have refuse to sell fuel in the first place. Is it not this same federal government that kept us in this position in the first place? If there was fuel in every filling station no matter the cost price nobody would buy black market unless black market were cheaper which is not even possible.

Many people (like the angry entrepreneur who took his anger out) can’t run their daily business because they can’t get the little fuel they need to operate. Today when I was going out, I notice people are now carrying their generators to the station and I said to myself this is madness. The federal government are turning us into mad people, the idea of carrying a generator about with fuel inside is not just crazy but dangerous yet this is what the federal government has forced us to do. The one that made me laugh the most was when I saw a guy turn fuel from an Okada tank into his keg and I was like wtf, has it gotten this bad?

If truly the federal government wants to stop black market from operating then they should make sure every filling station in the country has fuel and are selling it, no matter the price Nigerians would still buy fuel, the highest thing we are going to do is complain which is what we know how to do best.