Nigeria is facing a shortage of premium motor spirit (petrol) as the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, or IPMAN, issued a seven-day notice to suspend operations nationwide due to the non-payment of N100 billion in bridging claims on Monday.CONTINUE FULL READING>>>>>
Yahaya Alhasan, the chairman of the IPMAN Depot Chairmen Forum, said this at a news conference on Monday in Abuja. He claims that 40 days after making a commitment to do so in front of National Security Advisor Nuhu Ribadu, the Nigerian government, acting through the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, or NMDPRA, has not paid off its N100 billion bridging debt owed to gasoline marketers.
According to him, this outstanding debt has caused the Northern depots—which include the Jos, Gusau, Minna, Suleja, Kaduna, Kano, Gombe, Yola, and Maiduguri depots—to become totally grounded. IPMAN also objected to the NMDPRA’s 5 percent tax on its members. “We will stop providing our services nationwide if NMDPRA does not pay us within seven days,” Alhasan stated.
The Nigerian Midstream Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, or NMDPRA, owes our members over N100 billion in bridging and NTA claims. We are very angry that, a year after our last demand as a forum, the NMDPRA management has purposefully disregarded our request, despite their explicit promises to reimburse us.
At the stakeholders’ meeting held the night before the most recent strike action announced by NARTO, the NMDPRA made one of those pledges. This same IPMAN bridging claim was one of the demands made by the Nigerian Association of Road Transport Owners, or NARTO, at that stakeholders’ meeting before the strike action was canceled.
Even with the National Security Advisor, Mal. Nuhu Ribadu, and the DG DSS, Mr. Adeola Ajayi, present, the NMDPRA pledged to offset the bridging claims within 40 days. But 40 days have turned into months, and we still have no chance of getting paid. Therefore, because of this outstanding debt, the nine (9) Northern depots—which include the Jos, Gusau, Minna, Suleja, Kaduna, Kano, Gombe, Yola, and Maiduguri depots—have been totally grounded.
For the sake of clarity, it is necessary to reiterate that the money owed to us is that of marketers, who took it from us when we paid for the goods in order to cover our bridging allowances. Additionally, we have kept track of our members’ deaths, business closures, employee layoffs, and commercial banks acquiring their commercial spaces as a result of the NMDPRA’s failure to reimburse us.
The NMDPRA’s imposition of several unusual fees on our members is another concerning development. The most significant of these is the levying of a five percent commission that they are entitled to from the sale of any gas station in Nigeria. When did the NMDPRA become a real estate company and start taking commissions on the selling of retail gas stations? It is undeniable that the downstream retail sector is constantly changing.
Therefore, in order to comply with global best standards, we IPMAN members periodically go above and above to renovate our stores. But the NMDPRA has also made things extremely difficult for us by requiring our members to pay strange fees whenever we decide it is appropriate to update our gas stations.
They have imposed numerous upsetting taxes on us, these being only a handful of them. We demand that these be suspended immediately since they are unconstitutional and anti-developmental. We genuinely think that, as a group of law-abiding Nigerians, we have given the NMDPRA plenty time to settle the bridging issues and pay us our money in full.
However, given their persistent denial, we have made the decision to communicate with our sister groups, the PTD and NARTO, in order to take coordinated action when the time is right. As IPMAN members, it is crucial to note that we also own a significant number of petroleum tankers that are operated by the PTD. In an effort to ensure that our bridging and NTA claims are paid immediately, we might be compelled to stop using our tankers to carry petroleum products.
In this protracted conflict between the depot chairs of the Nigerian Midstream & Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) and the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), we hereby urge the Federal Government of Nigeria, led by President Bola Tinubu, to fully intervene. If our demands are not fulfilled, we will not think twice about acting right away, starting on Monday, February 24, 2025.
“As we wait for our demands to be met and addressed by the NMDPRA, we call on our members nationwide to remain resolute and law-abiding,” the communiqué said. Gombe Depot Chairman Ibrahim Mohammed, for his part, expressed dissatisfaction with the Federal Government for not keeping its pledge to settle the N100 billion bridging claim.
The statement said, “As we wait for our demands to be met and addressed by the NMDPRA, we call on our members nationwide to remain resolute and law-abiding.” Ibrahim Mohammed, the chairman of Gombe Depot, voiced his dissatisfaction with the Federal Government for not keeping its pledge to settle the N100 billion bridging claim. The Nigerian government pledged to pay off the N100 billion bridging claim debt owed to gasoline traders in January 2025.CONTINUE FULL READING>>>>>
