[ 2015-05-25 ]

Nigerian airlines cancel flights amid fuel crisis
Nigerian airlines have grounded flights and radio
stations were silenced as a months-long fuel
shortage aggravated by striking oil tanker drivers
worsened in Africa’s biggest oil producer.

Vehicles also were grounded. Normally bustling
roads in Lagos, a metropolis of 20 million, were
half-empty and gas stations were closed on
Saturday.

One station owner said he had fuel but strikers
are threatening to set fire to any stations
selling it. He insisted on anonymity for fear of
reprisals.

Police were arresting black marketers selling fuel
at roadsides at four times the regulated 87 naira
($0.40) a litre.

Radio stations went dead on Saturday night,
including Classic FM, The Beat and City FM, hit by
frequent power outages and out of diesel fuel for
generators.

Chaos reigned at bus stations where vehicles stood
idle and at Lagos’ Murtala Muhammad
International Airport as one flight after another
was cancelled.

“All flights suspended or cancelled. No fuel.
Been sitting here since 6am,” one customer
complained on Twitter.

Flights cancelled

Aero Contractors, one of Nigeria’s largest
private airlines, has cancelled 80 percent of its
flights, said spokesman Simon Tunde.

Passengers said that Air France and Kenya Airways
flights diverted to Dakar, Senegal, and Cotonou,
Benin, to refuel on their way to Paris and Nairobi
because no fuel was available in Lagos this week.

Nigeria produces more than two million barrels of
petroleum a day but imports refined fuel because
it does not have enough functioning refineries. It
regularly suffers fuel shortages but nothing as
severe as the current countrywide crisis.

The crisis started weeks before the March 29
elections, with oil suppliers hit by tightened
credit lines amid halved international oil prices,
a slump in the naira currency, and unpaid
government debts the suppliers claim amount to
nearly $1bn.

Unpaid oil tanker drivers went on strike earlier
this month and other industry workers joined them
this week.

President Goodluck Jonathan lost the elections and
suppliers fear the debt will not be honoured by
President-elect Muhammadu Buhari, a former
military ruler who pledged to fight endemic
corruption.

Some alleged debt involves fuel subsidies that
critics say are a scam that benefited oil
suppliers and corrupt government officials with no
reduced costs for ordinary Nigerians.

Source - AP

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