A lawyer and human rights activist, Chief Malcom Omirhobo, today filed a suit at a Federal High Court in Lagos, challenging the ban of the sales of petrol in jerry cans. The applicant is suing for himself and on behalf of other Nigerians.
The Attorney-General of the Federation, the Minister of State for Petroleum, the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and the Inspector General (IG) of Police were joined as respondents in the suit.
Omirhobo is seeking a declaration that the directive by the second and third respondents to filling station owners not to sell petroleum products to Nigerians in jerry cans was discriminatory.
In an affidavit deposed to by the applicant, he averred that in January, he had approached several filling stations within his reach, with a jerry can to
purchase fuel for his generators, but was denied sale. The human rights activist said that all the filling station operators said that there was a directive from the respondents, not to sell fuel to Nigerians in jerry cans, gallons or kegs.
He, further, averred that this refusal led him as well as many other Nigerians to resort to buying fuel from the black market at exorbitant prices.
According to Omirhobo, the black market operators besieged filling stations with drums and gallons to purchase large volumes of fuel. They, then, hoarded the product and, subsequently, sold it to the public at astronomical prices, he said.
He added that this condition had forced him and many Nigerians to live in very poor and excruciating conditions.
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