Human rights lawyer, Femi Falana, has expressed concerns that the rising cost of living and arbitrary hike in the pump price of petrol amid scarcity has contributed to the number of fewer vehicles plying the Nigerian roads.
Falana made the observation when he was featured as a guest on Sunday’s Channels Television’s Politics Today.
The Senior Advocate of Nigeria also disclosed that it is high time the ‘monumental fraud’ bedeviling fuel importation in Nigeria was exposed.
His concerns come in the wake of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited’s confession that its substantial debt to suppliers is endangering the sustainable fuel supply.
The NNPCL disclosed this in a statement posted on its official X handle on Sunday.
Among other things, the corporation highlighted that the financial strain is placing significant pressure on its operations and threatening the stability of fuel supplies.
But Falana lamented that there are so many things the NNPCL and the Federal Government are not telling Nigerians.
He said, “How many people have bought a car in the last one and a half years, even second-hand cars (in Nigeria)? The point I am making is that the number of vehicles on the road has been reduced. Yet, we were told that during the days of boom, the NNPCL was subsidising 68 million litres of fuel per day.
“Now that there are problems, scarcity, and poverty everywhere, no new vehicles on the road, we are still paying for 68 million litres of fuel. Whereas before this regime came on board, the Comptroller General of Customs challenged the NNPCL during a Senate public hearing to pay for the amount of fuel that is said to be smuggled out of the country.”
While backing the call, Falana said emerging reports have since suggested that the NNPCL is not telling Nigerians everything it claimed to know about the smuggling of crude in the country.
According to him, smugglers need 2,000 petrol tankers to scoop away the volume of fuel the corporation claimed is being stolen frequently.
“This is because we man the borders and you will need about 2,000 tankers to take out the amount of fuel the NNPCL claimed was being smuggled out.
“So what has changed? This is the time to expose the monumental fraud that has characterized the importation of fuel,” he stated.
