Vice President Goodluck Jonathan has queried Dr. Rilwan Lukman, minister of petroleum resources, over his failure to bring an end to the three-month old nationwide fuel scarcity. The query appears is a follow up to the detailed report by Financial Standard last week of how Lukman’s roles contributed to the lingering fuel scarcity in Nigeria.
A senior official at the Presidency confirmed that the Petroleum Minister was summoned by the Vice President on Tuesday last week to explain reasons why the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) could not provide enough fuel needed to satisfy the nation’s daily demand requirement. Lukman was reminded of his assurance at the last Federal Executive Council (Fec) meeting for the year 2009 that fuel scarcity would become a thing of the past before the end of January 2010.
“Mr. Vice President was shocked by the  description of Lukman as ‘Mr. Fuel Scarcity’ by Financial Standard newspaper and his link to fuel shortages during his regime as the presidential adviser on petroleum to President Olusegun Obasanjo between 1999 and 2003”, the source lamented.
The official said Vice President Jonathan expressed his disappointment over continuous protection of NNPC  and top government officials in the downstream sub-sector by Lukman despite the worsening fuel crisis that has virtually paralysed economic activities nationwide.
He said the VP believed that Lukman should be in total control of fuel importation and distribution challenges since he has his trusted boys at the helm of affairs at the NNPC and other government parastatals in the downstream sub-sector.
He said: “We are aware that the cold war between Lukman and Mr. Odein Ajumogobia, minister of state for petroleum (saddled with the responsibility of the downstream sub-sector shortly before President Umaru Yar’Adua left the country for medical treatment in Saudi Arabia), contributed to the worsening fuel crisis as a result of divided loyalty by top officials  of the corporation”.
Goodluck, who has not been able to wield presidential powers since Yar’Adua left the country, is also not happy with the failure of the petroleum minister to let Nigerians know the truth about the shortfall in fuel supply after the withdrawal of major marketers from fuel importation until long queues refused to disappear from filling stations.
It was learnt that Jonathan threatened to sack Lukman if the fuel crisis does not abate.
The management of NNPC through Dr. Levi Ajuonuma, group general manager (public affairs), has continued to deceive Nigerians that the corporation had imported 31 cargoes (each measuring 30,000 metric tonnes of fuel) and blamed fuel scarcity on hoarding by major and independent marketers as well as panic buying by motorists.  
During the Christmas period last year, Lukman left Nigeria for Vienna on holiday in defiance of the Vice President’s directive that four ministers should not travel so as to monitor development associated with fuel distribution and power supply challenges during the period. In defence of his unofficial trip abroad, he said the VP was informed ahead and he gave him (Luman) express permission to embark on the trip. 
 A senior NNPC official confirmed that the threat to sack Lukman led to the creation of ‘NNPC War Room’ last week and subsequent directive by Lukman that the management of the corporation would be sacked if long queues failed to disappear within seven days.
The directive was also described by a senior official of the Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria (Moman) as an empty threat because supply-demand gap cannot be filled within two weeks even if there are 20 fuel cargoes of 30,000 metric tonnes (MT) capacity each on the high sea.
In effect, long queues worsened in Lagos State at the weekend and this created heavy traffic at the Lagos end of Ibadan-Lagos Express Way and other major roads in Lagos.
At most filling stations in Lagos, dealers and attendants took advantage of the scarcity to make abnormal profit by selling premium motor spirit (PMS) between N80 and N100 per litre.