Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), has lamented over price manipulation, alteration of metering devices by most of the independent marketers of petroleum products in the nation’s capital including fuel dispensing stations managed under the auspices of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited.
Describing the act as “the extensive, massive and well-coordinated”, HURIWA also expressed serious concern and shock that consumers of petroleum products in Abuja are left alone to face the undue and totally reprehensible practices perpetrated by fuel marketers.
A statement by Emmanuel Onwubiko, National Coordinator of the HURIWA, noted that the deeply entrenched manipulation and other illegal practices are orchestrated mainly by the independent marketers and NNPCL managed fuel stations including the fuel stations directly in front of the Nigerian Police Force Headquarters.
HURIWA said the other filling stations included; “The one in front of Transcorp Hilton and the NNPCL pumping stations near American International college situated in Durimi, Area 1 and the fuel stations adjacent the corporate offices of the NNPCL in the Central Business District of FCT.
“These brazen manipulative acts of treachery and criminality going on even besides corporate offices of the NNPCL and other highly visible institutions such as the Nigeria Police Force and the Transcorp Hilton demonstrates that these illegal and unethical practices are backed up by powerful people in government and within the corridors of power,” it said.
The Rights group further said that while such extensive criminal practices are going on even under the nose of the upstream regulatory agencies like the NNPCL and the headquarters of the Nigeria Police Force, yet no effective and remedial steps are adopted to bring the culprits to justice.
HURIWA therefore tasked the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission in collaboration with the Directorate of State Services, the Nigeria Police Force, the EFCC and the ICPC to immediately launch discreet but intelligence guided investigations by visiting the fuel pumping stations in the Abuja Municipal Area Council without notification to catch the culprits unawares.
It also said the extensive nature of the sophisticated crime of price manipulation and the illegal alterations of metering devices by petrol stations in the FCT, has made it inevitable to advocate for immediate steps by the enforcement agencies including the federal agencies involved in combating price manipulation and other illegal practices orchestrated by these independent marketers of fuel in the nation’s capital to stave off the huge burden of unethical practices petrol stations unleashed on consumers of petrol in the FCT.
HURIWA particularly charged the strategic government agency to step in and check the proliferation of price manipulation and illicit practices by the independent marketers of petroleum products in the nation’s capital.