The Lagos government has reached agreements to control the behavior of significant and independent oil merchants operating on important thoroughfares and in congested neighborhoods.
This was revealed in a statement released on Thursday by Frederic Oladeinde, the transportation commissioner.
According to Mr. Oladeinde, the country’s ongoing gasoline shortage made the effort by the transport ministry to restrict the marketers’ activities inevitable.
He claimed that Lagos’s free flow of traffic had been hampered by the continuing fuel shortage.
The measure, according to the commissioner, became necessary to prevent the indiscriminate queuing of drivers who frequently park irresponsibly on roads and bridges to buy fuel products, obstructing the free flow of traffic.
He stated that until the fuel shortage crisis subsided, petroleum marketers whose filling stations are on major highways and in high-traffic areas would be limited to operating only between the hours of 9:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. daily.
The government, according to Ms. Oladeinde, has given the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority, the Vehicle Inspection Service, the Transport Operations Compliance Unit, and other law enforcement organizations the responsibility of ensuring smooth traffic movement across Lagos.
He warned all significant and independent fuel marketers to follow the order or face sanctions.
Following the current global product scarcity, oil marketers urged for a phased elimination of gasoline subsidies rather than a complete deregulation. The decision was made by MOMAN’s Chairman, Olumide Adeosun, during a briefing with press. He claims that the war between Russia and Ukraine will have a “immense” impact on industry, thus the federal government is being urged to phase down subsidies gradually to prevent “shock.”
“The effect of the Russian/Ukraine war cannot be compared to what we experienced during the covid. What we are seeing is that countries are beginning to close borders against importers and products are being reserved for their own citizens alone. So Nigeria is also being shut out,” he said.