The scarcity of petrol continued in Lagos, Abuja and many other parts of the country on Thursday, defying the deadline given by the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu.

The minister had said queues by motorists at filling stations would disappear in the Federal Capital Territory and Lagos by Thursday and in other major cities of the country by the weekend.

However, marketers told our correspondents on Thursday that the scarcity of the product would persist beyond this week due to logistic problems, limited number of vessels bringing in the product and clearance procedures for the vessels by relevant agencies in the downstream oil sector.

They said if the supply of the product improved significantly, the scarcity should come to an end in the next one week.

Contrary to the minister’s promise, hundreds of motorists were seen in queues at filling stations in Abuja and Lagos on Thursday.

For instance, the Total and Conoil filling stations opposite the headquarters of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation had queues, while outlets in many other locations in the city were besieged by desperate motorists.

In Lagos, many filling stations still did not have the product, while those who were selling it had long queues of motorists to contend with, while black market operators were having a field day as they continued to enjoy patronage from many.

Explaining why the queues would not clear this week, a marketer, who spoke with one of our correspondents on condition of anonymity, said, “The queues can’t clear this week. Even if we have 100 vessels lined up, there are other logistic issues that follow and must be sorted out, and there are some agencies that come on board to do these things.

“Fuel is not a product that you just push to the market and everybody begins to buy. We have people that check the commodity, those who see to its discharge, and another group that determines how it is going to be sold.”