1. Ebira Youth Congress (EYC) decries and condemns the hapless spate of petroleum racketeering by fuel marketers, that is evolving in calculated fuel inflation and artificial scarcity in Ebira land.
2. Petroleum dealers and operators have beaten the generally expected retail custom of fuel, thereby boxing the final consumers to the corner of their own manipulated and non-negotiable pump price and gauge. Only one or two fuel stations currently sell at N185 on a terrible vehicular queue, negotiating and embarrassing the metropolis.
3. Privileged information reveal that some closed stations still quietly have their procured bulk products offloaded to sister stations at preferred price leaving final consumers with a whopping pump price of N275 to N280 and above at those other selling stations. And, much are hoarded to activate this scarcity to a desperation point of the famished buying public to buy at an overbloated value per litre.
4. Our grassroot has now become a very dire hassle as prices of goods and related fares currently escalate owing to the paramount index of petrol around our lives and living.
5. The loyalty of Ebira people towards business owners as a host community is a fact standing tall. And, in the face of the unaddressed apparently relegated Corporate Social Responsibility of businesses in Kogi Central including the oil outlets, zeroing in on exploitative pricing by petroleum marketers at this period is, to us at the Congress therefore, an assault on sensibility, gross violation of value, and a community privilege heavily abused.
6. The prevailing fuel regime in Kogi Central is a silent cankerworm taking its toll on all and sundry.
7. EYC charges the Local Government Chairmen in Kogi Central to join forces with the Directorate of State Services (DSS) and the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) to investigate these claims and establish the fact of the matter very cogently, and just immediately.
Signed:
Obiyo Ateiza Aliyu,
President-General,
Ebira Youth Congress (EYC).
08065338700.
December 23, 2022.