Movement was today truncated in the city of Enugu as most petrol station owners in the state closed their stations in protest to what some of them called “extortion” supported by the state government.
According to one of the operators that spoke to Journalist101 anonymously, “the directive came this morning form their union, Petroleum Dealers Association of Nigeria, that all members should close shop in protest of excessive levy from the state government.”
He went further to state that their “parent body that should protect them has been proscribed by the state government.”
Similarly, another member of the association told journalist101 correspondent that “their action today became necessary when the committee recently inaugurated by governor to reconcile the leadership issue of IPMAN in Enugu mandated them to pay an annual sum of Twenty Five Thousand Naira (N25,000.00).” He stressed that “this fee is excluding the irregular fee they are faced to pay when they discharging their petroleum products in their stations.”
When asked, if their was a memo mandating them to pay this N25,000, he responded in the affirmative and when asked to produce a copy of the memo, he said he doesn’t have a copy.
Recall, that the state government had proscribed the activities of Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, IPMAN over leadership crisis that would have led to breakdown of law and order, an action the counsel to Osita Nnamani Tagbo (the Chairman of IPMAN as affirmed by Supreme Court) described as “executive recklessness”
