The Federal Government has said that it intends to carry out an internal assessment of fuel diversion and cross-border smuggling prior to taking a decision that will resolve the fuel crisis in Nigeria.

This was made known by the Chief Executive, Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), Farouk Ahmed, during a live television programme in Abuja.

He stated that though the government is trying to resolve the issues of hike in fuel prices and its scarcity amicably, there is a need to consider both the advantages and the disadvantages of the steps earlier taken.

According to Ahmed, the government had earlier decided to punish people who flouted the regulations and had closed down over 270 filling stations and seven depots.

However, considering the implications of the sanctions he remarked, “… so if we continue to shut down, we are going to create another flashback because the more you shut down, the lesser number of petrol stations available to service the country.”

He assured Nigerians that the government will review the earlier decisions and take appropriate steps to resolve the issue.

The Group Chief Executive Officer, Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, Mele Kyari, who was also present at Abuja declared that the government has already deployed over 120 operatives of the Department of State Services (DSS) officers to accompany fuel tankers to their various filling stations.

In his words, “I know the kind of work that we do with the security agencies, for instance, in Abuja alone, we have over 120 DSS officers following every truck to fuel stations and we are activating this across the country.

“We are ensuring that we get other government security agencies to follow these trucks to their locations, in order to be very sure that these trucks actually get to the fuel stations and there are not sold on the way and they don’t cross the borders.”

Kyari had earlier explained at a stakeholders meeting in Abuja that Nigeria’s fuel was smuggled to other countries, as he insisted that the current PMS scarcity was not due to the forth-coming general elections.

“There’s no dispute about this that our fuel gets to other countries, including in marine containers. We have evidence now that some of our customers are actually taking investors to other countries and we will get to the root of this.

“The appropriate government security agencies will deal with this. But this is the reality that we are dealing with. You do have cross-border smuggling, either in form of round-tripping or whatever name we call it.

“So the 66 or 67 million litres that you have always seen include all these, the cross-border smuggling volumes. And it means that anytime we don’t satisfy those markets, it will affect your domestic market. This is the reality that we are dealing with,” he stated.

This, he said, will prevent diversion and cross-border smuggling of fuel. He added that more security agencies will be drafted into the exercise for nationwide coverage.

READ ALSO: Buhari Formally Endorses Tinubu