By James Jibril
The Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) in Kwara State has said its operatives have arrested three suspected petrol smugglers.
The security agency also said it recovered from the suspects 137 kegs of petrol “being smuggled into Benin Republic.”
The spokesman of the Kwara command of the NSCDC, Babawale Afolabi in a statement on Saturday, said the suspects were intercepted along the Nigeria-Benin Republic border.
“The tactical anti-vandal team of the corps acted on intelligence information and rounded up the three suspects on their way to Benin Republic with the petroleum products loaded inside 137 kegs on December 17,” he said.
The spokesman, however, said security operatives are on the trail of one of the suspects who is on the run.
According to him, the petroleum product was loaded from a filling station in Kaiama, headquarters of Baruten LGA of Kwara state and added that the filling station has been sealed off.
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The statement further said, Ayinde Yusuf, head of the anti-vandal unit, who led the operation, warned smugglers in the state to desist from their activities.
“The NSCDC and other security agencies are all out to make life difficult for the criminals,” he added.
To maintain the N165 official pump price of petro, the federal government expended an average of N150billion monthly, which shows an unsustainable yearly sum of N1.8trillion to subsidize the product for Nigerians.
The average price of gasoline in the world is currently estimated at 494.96 Nigerian Naira. This means that the Nigerian government pays off about N329.96 per litre of petro to keep the price at N165.
A large chuck of the subsidized product is, however, smuggled outside the shores of Nigeria by smugglers who take advantage of the fuel subsidy regime of the government to make illegal wealth to the detriment of citizens.
Following advice by the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank, the government has announced that it will be ending fuel subsidy regime in 2022. This has sparked reactions from different quarters with the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) threatening a nationwide protest on February 1, 2022 by way of resistance while the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) is backing the government on the removal of subsidy.
