The Independent Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), western zone, has assured Nigerians that fuel scarcity would soon end.

Dele Tajudeen, IPMAN zonal chairman (western zone), gave the assurance on Tuesday in Ibadan.

“We just rose from a meeting with the authority concerned and we had a very useful discussion with the authority. One, we have to address the issue of availability and cycle. We appeal to people to bear with us, as the scarcity will fizzle out gradually,” said the IPMAN zonal chair. “By the special grace of God, by next week, we will start to see changes and the queues will disappear.”

Mr Tajudeen said there was no directive stopping its members from continuing with their operations, pointing out that the speculation on shutting down of filling stations was not from the association. He was reacting to the speculations making the rounds that IPMAN had directed its members to stop operations and shut down their filling stations to protest the fuel price hike.

According to him, IPMAN has units and zones, and its South-West zone comprises Lagos, Sapele, Ibadan, Ore, Ilorin and Mosimi depots. He stated that the depots in the zone had not been directed to shut down operations.

Mr Tajudeen added that the directive from the Maiduguri depot did not affect IPMAN members in other parts of Nigeria, particularly in the South-West region.

“As far as we are concerned, as the zonal chairman, I have authority of other chairmen in the zone. We are not closing our stations. The letter you are seeing is from Maiduguri; look at the letter very well. It emanated from Maiduguri and has nothing to do with the South-West,” Mr Tajudeen explained.

(NAN)