By Bamidele Aremu
With the price of Premium Motor Spirits (P.M.S), popularly known as petrol, now above N1000 in most filling stations across Nigeria, independent petrol marketers in the Ilorin metropolis have lamented low patronage at their retail outlets.
In a visit to some major petrol stations in the metropolis on Wednesday, National Pilot observed that some pump attendants were idle due to lack of patronage. It was also discovered that some filling stations are now cutting their workforce and work shifts because of high pricing and low returns on investments.
Bovas filling station in Saw-mill, which is known to be one of the most occupied fuel stations in Ilorin, has now become a shadow of itself, although the filling station has a stock of fuel. The Assistant-Manager of the station, Miss Ubeydat Ahmed, while speaking to the National Pilot, lamented that low patronage has affected the sales of the station.
“The level of patronage is now very poor. We have big customers with luxury cars who have stopped buying petrol and are now using alternative means of transport. We used to sell up to 11,000 litres of petrol per day but at the moment, we can only boast of 5,000 litres, ” Miss Ahmed Lamented.
She also stated that the situation is peculiar not only to the filling station but also to the city.
“If you observe some filling stations in this town, you will just see few cars buying ” She added.
Also, a check at one of the Total Energies filling stations located at Gari-Alimi, the trend seems to be the same. The supervisor on duty, Mr. Hakeem Akinde bemoans the scourge perpetuated by the hike in pump price.
According to him, the percentage of the station’s sales has drastically reduced to 80% leading to unavoidable retrenchment of some workers at the filling station.
At Rainoil filling station along Asa Dam road, a staff who spoke to National Pilot under anonymity said that motorists patronizing the station had dropped immensely due to the negative impact of the fuel hike.
“We are always busy attending to customers from morning till evening but since the hike in pump prices, we are not doing much at the moment since patronage is relatively low
“This situation has also affected some staff. The company has downsized the workforce due to the inability to meet up with salary payments,”
“Also, if sales do not improve, we might all lose our jobs, which will lead to the indefinite closure of the company. We call on the government to proffer a long-lasting solution to the problems generated by the increase in petrol price,” the staff said.
However, at the time of filling this report, National Pilot’s efforts to get the reaction of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria ( Ipman) chairman, Alhaji Abdullateef Abdulrauf Kamaja, proved abortive as he did not pick up the calls put through his phone.
