Minister of State for Petroleum, Ibe kachikwu has said that fuel scarcity would be eliminated from Nigeria in the next two months.

Kachikwu, who’s also the group managing director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, said on Wednesday, that to avert future cases of fuel scarcity, the government will stop selling crude produced in the country’s refineries.

After a closed-door meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari, the Minister said: “I think if we do that – although I don’t want to put a time frame – I will expect that over the next two months…. Of course, you are aware the SAP programme begins in April ‎so over the next two months we should see quite frankly a complete elimination of this.”

“Our strategy is that whatever is produced in the refineries will not go for sale. We are going to keep them in strategic reserve because the key problem here is that there is no reserve anytime there is gap in supply it goes off.”

Kachikwu further stated that the frequency of fuel scarcity is making it hard for him to sleep well at night.

“So, we are going to dedicate the next couple of months to moving all the products that we produce to strategic reserve so that we can pile up reserves position in the nation and that will push up the reserves in the nation.”

“Believe me, this is giving me sleepless nights and we are working on it and we are committed to making this go away. Nigerians should please bear with us.”

Mazi Emeka