The Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) in Adamawa has raised concern over the involvement of filling stations near the border in the state in smuggling petroleum products. Acting Operation Controller of the DPR in Adamawa, Laminga Mohammed, disclosed this to News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday in Yola.
Mr Mohammed had led an operation team on a clampdown exercise on such filing stations in the border local government area of Mubi South. Mr Mohammed said many of such stations were unregistered and were being used by smugglers to siphon fuel to neighbouring Cameroon.
“Some of these filling stations buildings are uncompleted and have no names. “Some usually mounted their pumps inside rooms and they always have warehouses for containing jerrycans which they usually filled under the cover of night for transportation across the border.” He said three of such filling stations had been raided and demobilised in Munduva village of Mubi South Local Government Area where underground tanks were discovered with a large quantity of fuel while hundreds of Jerrycans were also found in their warehouses. Mr Mohammed lamented what he described as unpatriotic action by some Nigerians who obtain subsidized government petroleum products only to smuggle it out.
“Our coming to Munduva, which is close to Nigeria/Cameroon border, is to raid all these stations used for hoarding and smuggling subsidized petroleum products by unpatriotic people to Cameroon. “We have gone round and demobilized facilities being used by the stations such as pump machines and generators,” Mohammed said. He urged for more support for the DPR by security agencies in the border areas to contain the activities of the smugglers.
While reiterating the commitment of DPR in monitoring the operations of filling stations to contain sharp practice, Mr Mohammed also called for public support to succeed in the exercise. NAN reports that statistics by the Adamawa office of the DPR shows that there are 45 illegal filling stations across the state.
