Fuel, PHCN pre-paid cards’ scarcity hits Edo State

BARELY 24 hours after the Federal Government reduced the pump price of petrol from N138 to N97 per litre, scarcity of the product has hit parts of Edo State, including Benin City, the state capital. The few stations that sold the product suddenly closed shops yesterday.

Meanwhile, electricity consumers in the state who use pre-paid metres, have been going through hard times getting recharge cards to access electricity as most of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) offices have closed their doors to customers following a recent robbery attack in one of their offices in Benin City.

When The Guardian visited some filling stations in the city yesterday, only the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) mega station along Sapele Road was selling petrol at the new pump price of N97, which led to long queues.

All the other filling stations visited claimed they did not have the commodity while some motorists resorted to black market vendors, who sold 10 litres of petrol for between N2,500 to N3,000.

A victim of the robbery, John Bosco, told The Guardian yesterday that they had opened shop to customers last week only for armed robbers to invade their office, asking for proceed of the day’s sale.

“They almost killed the policeman on duty, they went away with his gun, macheted him. In fact, they tore his stomach and we had to rush him to the hospital where he is said to be recovering”, he added. .

The incident led to other PHCN’s selling outlets to close shop, as they feared that robbers may take advantage of banks’ closure to attack them.