IPMAN Crisis: Reps Wade In To Avert Fuel Scarcity

Worried about the attendant adverse effect of fuel scarcity on Nigerians due to the leadership tussle in the Independent Petroleum Marketers of Nigeria (IPMAN), the House of Representatives has mandated its committee on Petroleum Resources (Downstream) and Labour to wade into the matter with a view to ensuring that distribution of petroleum products is not affected .
IPMAN has been going through a leadership tussle over which factional national president should be recognised. As a result of the crisis, the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) shut down NIPCO, a subsidiary of IPMAN, leading to total paralysis of commercial activities and threatening distribution of petroleum products across the country.
Moving a motion of urgent national importance on the matter yesterday, chairman of the House committee on Petroleum Resources, Hon Dakuku Peterside (APC, Rivers) noted that the closure of NIPCO and the involvement of NUPENG in the crisis spells doom for availability of fuel in the country and as such, efforts must be made by the lawmakers to ensure that more action that will cause more hardship for Nigerians was forestalled.
“If we allow this leadership crisis to continue without doing something, Nigerians will be the ones to bear the brunt”, he stated while leading debate on the motion.
The lawmaker went further to add that his fear is that “IPMAN and the company they control, NIPCO and their associate, NUPENG, does not go on strike,” and to “avert disruption of petroleum products in the country,” he said.