Residents of Calabar, the Cross River State capital, are lamenting the epileptic power supply and the unavailability of petroleum products in the state in the last few weeks.
Some residents who spoke with The Tide source on Monday, in Calabar, decried the situation, saying that whereas fuel stations were locked and not selling fuel, black marketers were thriving.
Mrs Juliet Uka lamented that power supply in the city had also been very poor adding that to make matters worse, petrol, which Nigerians would have used to help themselves, was unavailable.
“Look at me, I had to leave my house early this morning in search of fuel and I was praying because I was aware that what I had in the car was so small and could be exhausted anywhere leaving me by the roadside.
“The power supply at home has not helped matters; it has been terribly poor, my phones are dead and we cannot power the generating set because there is no fuel, this is terribly frustrating”, she said.
A bus driver, Mr Emmanuel Udoh, said many of the passengers accused them of inflating the cost of transportation in the city without just cause, they refuse to see that the price of fuel has risen by more than 100 per cent.
He said he was aware that times were hard for residents in the city but they would not go back to the old transportation fares unless things changed.
“I don’t like the way things are but I am not the cause, we cannot keep on collecting the old transportation fares and go back home with nothing at the end of the day.
“You are not even sure of how much fuel will be sold tomorrow as we have seen a steady rise in the price of the product since this problem started. Today it is sold for between N340 and N350 per litre for those willing to sell.
“You may come out tomorrow morning and it is N400 per litre, you will have no option other than to buy it that way to do your business, it is clear that no one is regulating anything anymore,’’ he said.
The source reports that while the Manager of one of the selling fuel stations was inaccessible to give insight on why the cost of the product was exorbitant, a male attendant said, dismissively, that they sold based on how they bought the product.
There has been a steady rise in the price of petroleum products in Cross River and poor power supply in the last few months which has affected the price of transportation and other goods and services in the state.
The source also reports that in the Atimbo area of the city that had six fuel stations, only two of them were dispensing petroleum products as at the time of this report and they were selling for N330 and N340 per litre respectively.