Lift Ban On Fuel Supply To Border Communities – Senate To FG

The Senate has urged the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) Comptroller General and the National Security Adviser (NSA) to relax the existing restriction order on the supply of petroleum products to border communities.

It stated that the federal government’s elimination of gasoline subsidies had effectively put an end to product smuggling and that the products should thus be permitted to flow freely and without limits.

The Red Chamber encouraged the Comptroller General’s and National Security Agency’s offices to step up preventive and enforcement actions to combat all forms of smuggling in the country.

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The resolutions were passed in response to Senator Solomon Adeola (APC Ogun West)’s motion in the plenary on Tuesday.

Senator Adeola informed his colleagues during the debate on the motion that the federal government had directed on November 6, 2019, through the Comptroller General of Customs that “no petroleum products are permitted to be discharged in any filling station within a radius of 20 kilometers to the border” of Nigeria.

He noted that the directive was intended to halt the smuggling of Nigerian petroleum products, primarily premium motor spirit, PMS, to neighboring countries where there was a thriving market for petrol due to a subsidy that remained in place until May 29, 2023, when President Bola Tinubu announced its removal in his inaugural speech.

“This policy had brought untold hardship and major losses to businesses of the residents and indigenes of the affected border communities, which later made the Nigerian Customs relax the policy slightly by giving license to two or three petrol stations in each of the local government areas that border these neighbouring countries.

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“But that remedy was just a drop of water in an ocean scarcity of petrol considering the mass population of the people affected in these border towns and communities,” he stressed.

The lawmaker stated that the suspension order has impacted people living in border communities across Yewaland in Ogun State, particularly in the Idiroko axis, where only five licensed independent petroleum marketers are permitted to dispense the commodity to over 500,000 residents spread across 150 towns and villages.

Senator Adeola argued that “since there is no more subsidy on petroleum products as proclaimed by the President, there is no justification for the restriction order because the price of petrol across the international border has also gone up in line with the new price regime across Nigeria.”

All senators who voted in favor of the motion noted the “untold hardships” being experienced by those living in border villages due to fuel and fertilizer limitations, particularly in the country’s north.

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In a subsequent resolution, the Senate directed the Committees on Customs and Excise and National Security and Intelligence, once formed, to guarantee compliance and report back in four weeks for additional legislative action.

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