The ember month experience

The experience I had today reminded me of the 'bad' old days during the last of the ember months in Nigeria. Aside the artificial hike in prices of commodities towards the end of the year for reasons best known to the sellers. We usually experienced an artificial scarcity of petroleum products with the resultant increase in price . This increase when the times were bad may be as high as 300 %, that is if you could even get hold of the fuel as there were usually long queues where only the fittest survived in the midst of the chaos.

Those days the last resort to get fuel at the normal price was to head for the mega service stations operated by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). Amidst of the never ending queues, as with most things in Nigeria, those with 'levels' or 'connections' in the right places still managed to get the product without having to go through the stress of joining the queue. Sadly we had come to accept the hike and scarcity as a normal occurrence as the year draws to a close.

However over the last couple of years which has seen an increase in the price of premium motor spirit popularly called fuel , there hasn't been any serious case of fuel scarcity as the product is available in the location where I reside. Apparently the increase in price was the pound of flesh to be paid for the product to be available.

Although there have been instances where the price of fuel has been reduced, the unwritten rule with prices generally is that when they go up, they hardly come down as is the norm in Nigeria. The implication of the rise in the price of fuel is that transporters increase the fares they charge hence commuters have to pay more.

Back to the experience that promoted this piece. Electricity supply is a challenge which the government has yet to find a sustainable solution to over the years despite huge sums of money that has been channeled to the power sector. Hence it is a common scene to hear a cacophony of different generating sets particularly at night from virtually every household that can afford to maintain one to provide electrical power.

Thus fuel has to be purchased on a regular basis to power up the generating sets. I had set out late in the evening to purchase fuel for our generating set. An exercise which ought to have been a routine task or a 'cake walk'. Little did I know that I would end up spending more than an hour and taking a trip by bus for an activity which I usually completed under 20 mins.

I arrived at the first service station which was usually a beehive of activities but lo and behold it seemed like a ghost town as there were no vehicles purchasing fuel in sight. It was at this point an elderly woman who had just purchased fuel at another service station directed me to visit that service station. I briskly walked over there .

The first sight that welcomed me there was a lady who was purchasing 60 litres worth of the product. I decided to join the queue and wait for my turn to get service. My hopes were dashed a few minutes later as the attendant announced that they had run out of fuel. I was disappointed at not being able to get fuel at either station as they are known for not 'adjusting' their pumps in order to make more profits as was the practise of some other service stations.

The next available option was a service station which in the past has been notorious for adjusting its pumps. This malpractice had earned it the wrath of car owners as well as individuals who needed fuel for other purposes. They service station witnessed a boycott and its fortunes dwindled. In an attempt at redemption, the management was changed and to reassure buyers a sign with under new management boldly inscribed on it was displayed at its entrance.

This effort to woo back customers has been somewhat successful as the station now has a reasonable number of buyers daily. They are still in my black books though as the last time I purchased fuel there the quantity I got was clearly less than what I got from other service stations at same price. Hence I can say they are yet to fully repent. I am not surprised though, old habits they say die hard.

Other service stations have literally paid the ultimate price for short changing buyers. One clearly comes to mind as a good example. The now defunct service station was purportedly owned by one of the popular transport lines in my locality which is known for professionalism and quality service. Hence it was only natural that we expected same from the service station.

But boy were we in for a shocker. initially they appeared to be living up to the high standards which we were holding them to. Then the complaints started trickling in. They were accused of adjusting their pumps and then the backlash from buyers followed based on these allegations. Very soon buyers began to avoid the service station like it was the plague.

Unfortunately the owners of the service station did not act fast enough to adopt the under new management model of redemption and that was how its fortunes dwindled under a very short period of time due to low patronage and it had to eventually shut down its operations. These events point to a golden lesson, avoid any service station that has low patronage especially from commercial vehicle drivers because they have a way of finding out if they are being short changed by service stations.

As to the reason for my experience, two possibilities have been adduced. The first as suggested by a buyer at one of the service stations is the planned resumption of the endsars protest across the country and the second which seems more plausible is that there is a planned reduction in the price of fuel hence service stations held off resupplies in order to purchase the product at the reduced price from the depots. However whatever the case may be,the earlier fuel is available, the better for the general populace before we experience a return to the dark days of fuel scarcity.

Shukran

Danke

Merci

Gracias

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ধন্যবাদ

Спасибо

for reading.