Special Report: Subsidy Removal Crisis: We Feel The Pain of High Price, Poor Electricity Supply More – Iseyin Fuel Marketers Cost of Our Vehicles Maintenance, Fuel Made Us Charge Passengers Double Fare – Public Transporters Our Businesses Are Suffering As We Can Hardly Travel – Commuters -Report by Oluwaseyi Adebayo and Aminat Ajao

Special Report:

Subsidy Removal Crisis: We Feel The Pain of High Price, Poor Electricity Supply More – Iseyin Fuel Marketers

Cost of Our Vehicles Maintenance, Fuel Made Us Charge Passengers Double Fare – Public Transporters

Our Businesses Are Suffering As We Can Hardly Travel – Commuters

-Report by Oluwaseyi Adebayo and Aminat Ajao

The Federal Government, under the incumbent President, Bola Tinubu has been under pressure over the effects of the removal of petroleum subsidy, which has caused untold pain on all the strata of the society, as the rich and the poor are complaining over evaporating purchasing power and high poverty rate in the country.

The new government seems not to feel the pains of the people, nor hear thier cries as the removal of fuel subsidy has really affected a lot of people and has made a lot of businesses collapse, which is a bad indicator for the newly elected government.

Fuel marketers, market women, travellers and others have been complaining and lamenting over the past few months of this crisis of removal of subsidy by the government as few vehicles are seen on the roads and business premises in the ancient town of Iseyin see fewer clients.

The Chairman Independent Petroleum Marketers Association (IPMAN), Iseyin branch, Alhaji S.B Hammed stated that the fuel subsidy affect fuel marketers more than the consumers because the price they were buying fuel is now higher than what they used to buy before the introduction of the subsidy removal policy.

He further explained that a consignment of fuel that an average filling station paid seventeen million naira for before has now has now risen to twenty million naira, which cause them great loss because the margin on each tank is still same as before and make them arrive at little or no profit.

Also, he mentioned that the poor supply of electricity also affects their services negatively because when there is no power supply they will have to resort to use of generator plant to sell the fuel, which will also make eat into their little profit.

“We are not immune from this crisis, we suffer same fate as other Nigerians, a fuel consignment that we used to buy for seventeen million naira now goes for twenty million.

“Note that power supply is also a problem in Nigeria, if we buy fuel to be sold and their is no electricity to power the machines, we resort to the use of generating sets to sell fuel and that also eats into our gain.”

Alhaji Hammed advised that if the Nigerian government can revamp the local refineries and they are working at optimum condition, it will be of help to the country’s economy, pleading with President Tinubu to look into it.

A bus transporter, Mr Lukmon Ajadi at Iseyin claimed that transporters are not the ones causing the suffering of commuters but the price of fuel which has caused them to charge double, the amount they charged before.

He claimed that they were trying to make the little they can get from the the hard time as they have no other business than the transportation business.

“Some drivers that drive buses are not the owner of the buses they drive and will always give a specific amount of money to the owner of the bus as delivery at the end of each day.

“The new-elected president can’t be entirely blamed for the crisis, as he met the subsidy crisis which past administrations have failed to act upon.”

He further explained that fuel is not the only challenge public transporters face, as there is also problem of cost of motor parts, repairing of faulty vehicles, which also affect them and make them charge passengers more than before.

He stressed that if the people had allowed the former President Good luck Jonathan to remove the subsidy during his tenure, maybe Nigeria would have started reaping the benefits of the policy.

Commuters also shared thier own feelings and experiences with our correspondents as Mrs Idoku Taiwo, a passenger said that she used to travel a lot but does not do so again because of the exorbitant farein because of the subsidy removal action.

She stated that since she could not travel as much as she wanted, her sales business is suffering for it.

A student explained how the fuel subsidy has been been affecting him academically. Ishola Roqeeb, a student of Oyo State College of Health Science and Technology, Eleyele said he supposed to have resumed back to school but since the transport fare has skyrocketed, he had to work to be able to afford it.

The masses of people in Iseyin, spoken to by our reporters pleaded with President Bola Tinubu to find urgent solutions to the crisis before it snowball into crisis that the government will not be able to contain.