Hundreds of protesters blocked roads in Benin City, the Edo State Capital, Southwest Nigeria on Monday, over the protracted fuel scarcity and hike in the price of the product.
A video of the protest seen by SaharaReporters on Monday morning shows fires on the road with thick smoke billowing from the burning materials.
A voice narration in the video said, “This is happening live in Benin City, Edo State capital; huge protest going on over fuel crisis. You can see protesters block roads and making fire on the roadblocks.”
The media earlier reported that the price of premium motor spirit (PMS), otherwise called petrol had gone up, with some fuel stations selling for as high as N400 per litre.
The official cost of the product used to be N165 per litre before recent reports accuse the government of quietly increasing it to N185 per litre. But due to the scarcity of the product and the rising demand, many fuel stations have been selling for between N340 and N400 per litre.
The scarcity of the product is currently causing untold hardship for Nigerians.
Also the media earlier reported that President Buhari recently set up a 14-man committee that he would be heading to proffer solutions to the lingering fuel scarcity.
The committee according to the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Mr Timipre Sylvia, will be chaired by the President as the Minister of Petroleum Resources while he will be the alternate chairman.
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The committee’s job is to address the challenges in the downstream sector of the petroleum industry, causing petrol scarcity in Nigeria.
It will also track petroleum products, especially petrol to ascertain daily national consumption and eliminate smuggling.
In October 2022, Sylva said Nigeria was losing at least 700,000 barrels of crude oil to thieves daily.
The minister said this through the Permanent Secretary in the petroleum resources ministry, Ambassador Gabriel Aduda, who represented him at the 2002 graduation of students of the Petroleum Training Institute (PTI).
