Strike Suspension: Petrol Queues Disappear In Abuja

Petrol queues which sprang up in filling stations in Abuja and environs on Monday following notice of strike by oil marketers have disappeared yesterday, The Tide gathered.
Our source who visited some filling stations in the area reports that the pandemonium by motorists struggling to get the product the previous day had disappeared.
At the Mobil filling station by Specialist Hospital and the MRS station in Dagiri, both in Gwagwalada, they were devoid of the chaos recorded on Monday as there were barely any cars in the filling stations.
Along Airport Road, NIPCO, NNPC and Mobil filling stations had no queues and motorists drove in and out freely to buy the product.
At Conoil before Aso Estate, the manager of the station, who pleaded anonymity, said that the queues cleared overnight.
“We paid for this fuel since last week. We were expecting it to be delivered on Saturday but the truck came in yesterday night and as you can see, they are offloading’’.
An attendant at the NNPC filling station who simply gave her name as Grace said “it may have been panic-buying. We heard there would be strike and people must have heard it too’’.
The only filling stations that had semblance of queues were the NNPC mega station in Zone 1 and the Conoil station opposite NNPC towers, but it was discovered that it was a fallout of Monday’s panic-buying.
It could be recalled  that the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) had threatened strike over some unresolved issues with the NNPC and their internal squabbles.
The strike billed to have commenced on Tuesday was, however, shelved on Monday following the intervention of Group Managing Director of NNPC, Dr Maikanti Baru.
Baru met with members  of the IPMAN Committee on FOREX Intervention, Products Sourcing and Distribution.