While Nigerians spend long hours and struggle for petrol at filling stations, neighbours Benin and the Niger Republic are using fuel smuggled from Nigeria to power their vehicles and generators.

This is according to new investigation published by PUNCH on Saturday.

For the umpteenth time in 2024, queues in filling stations have returned and motorists are groaning about the struggle for petrol and increased pump price. Passengers equally bear the brunt as fuel scarcity and increased pump price have resulted into increased transportation fares.

PUNCH’s correspondents who travelled to Cotonou and Calavi, discovered the realities of the residents of these two cities were a stark contrast to the harsh realities that stare Nigerians in the face.

Unlike Nigerian petrol stations where motorists have been queuing for long hours since this wave of fuel scarcity resumed in August, there were no long queues in filling stations across these two cities in Benin.

The atmosphere in petrol stations in these two cities were calm when the correspondents visited. They also observed that the customer turnouts in those petrol stations were low, unlike those in Nigeria where petrol stations were filled to the brim with cars, that drivers sometimes parked on the roads and caused traffic congestion for other road users.

Philip Umo, an attendant at the Sylfrec Filling Station, in Benin Republic, who spoke in French, said while fuel was consistently available in their country, the challenge was finding buyers for the product.

This investigation also revealed that many traders who engaged in selling black market fuel in the country sourced the product from Nigeria.

Wasiu Olawale, a black market fuel trader, said there was enough fuel in Benin and everyone knows that much of it comes from Nigeria, but it is cheaper there than it is in Nigeria.

Although the Nigerien government had outlawed smuggling fuel from Nigeria into their country, black marketers in Niger still found a way to beat security and smuggle fuel through the borders.

Hassan Muhammad, a black marketer in Konni, Niger, also said that they got their products through smugglers in Nigeria.

“We get our supply from Nigeria but not through legal means; most of the people that supply us are Nigerians who make the fuel available to us here,” Muhammad said.

“They use the bush path and, at times, through the waterways but not through the legal land border.

“It is a smuggled product and their prices differ. Some sell for us like N1,100 per liter or less sometimes.”

On Monday, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPCL), claimed it was addressing the current fuel scarcity.

Ekom Idemudo, the secretary of of the Independent Petrol Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), told FIJ on Monday that petrol marketers lacked the product because marketers did not have the product, and this was because they could not get allocations from the NNPCL.

He also added that the price had gone up because of the cost of transporting trucks containing the petrol to various places across the country.

Credit: FIJ