Federal government has punished 55 fuel station operators across the country, alleging sharp practices responsible for the prevailing nationwide shortage of petroleum products. By so doing the government has made good its threat to sanction any stations found to be hoarding petrol and allied products.

Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) which mounted a round-the-clock surveillance on the fuel situation in response to a presidential directive announced yesterday that the exercise showed that the sanctioned filling stations contributed to the lingering scarcity of products.

Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan had stopped Christmas break for ministers in the nation's energy sector following a protracted supply crisis in the petroleum and power sub-sectors. The directive had raised questions over the trip of the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Dr. Rilwanu Lukman, to Austria.

But the minister clarifies that his trip was authorized by the vice-president.

In his absence, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Mr. Odein Ajumogobia, had directed DPR to transmute into a command-and-control agency to enforce discipline in the market and ease the difficulty of commuters in the yuletide season.

Director of DPR, Mr. Billy Agha, who led the Lagos team, stormed the market on Thursday to monitor the situation over the Christmas holidays. Seven other command-and-control centres were also established in Abuja, Port Harcourt, Warri, Owerri, Calabar, Kaduna and Maiduguri for the same purpose.

Selling of petrol in jerry cans and above the approved pump prices were also banned while the police was requested to arrest and prosecute marketers that flouted the order.

Following the exercise, Daily Champion gathered, 55 filling stations belonging to both major and independent marketers across the country were either shut or compelled to sell at appropriate prices.

Out of the number, 12 were shut down in Kaduna and environs, two in Lagos, 15 in Abuja, six in Kano and 12 in Sokoto. Figures were not supplied for other centres.

The stations, according to a statement from DPR, were caught in various offences ranging from diversion and hoarding to breaking of price caps.

Mr. Agha had while kicking off the monitoring campaign said the cause of the fuel scarcity was not supply shortage but sharp practices by marketers that were supplied with government's products.

He made it clear that the volume of petroleum products in the country was enough to keep the market wet if the marketers had kept to honest practices.

But the Executive Secretary of the Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN), Mr. Thomas Olawore, had exonerated the major marketers from the rascality in the market, blaming the situation on retail site operators that try to take advantage of supply gaps in the market.

He said the situation would be permanently addressed by market competition when the market is fully deregulated.

A survey by Daily Champion showed fuel supply situation in the country significantly improved yesterday following activities of the command and control team of the DPR.

Most stations that had shut gates against motorists suddenly opened to customers since Sunday. All stations of Oando Plc visited were open to customers even though one had to buy a can of insecticide to get serviced.

Meanwhile, Dr Lukman has clarified the circumstances surrounding his recent trip to Vienna, Austria, asserting that contrary to widespread media reports that he defied the Vice-President's order that he should not travel, he secured the permission of the Vice-resident before travelling.

The Group General Manager Public Affairs Division of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Dr. Levi Ajuonuma, who made the clarification in a statement, said Dr. Lukman was saddened by the reports and the innuendoes that depicted him as one without respect for constituted authority.

"Dr Lukman is concerned about the recent reports in the media insinuating that he defied the Vice President's order banning him from going on break during the Christmas break. He has explained that contrary to the reports, he actually sought and got the Vice President's express permission to travel," Dr Ajuonuma said in a statement.

He quoted the Minister as saying: "At the end of the last Federal Executive Council meeting in which the Vice President gave the instruction that we should not travel, I intimated him of the urgent need for me to travel to attend to certain pressing official as well as family matters and he gave me approval to travel. I couldn't have travelled without the express permission of the Vice President. I have no reason whatsoever to defy the office of the Vice President as is widely reported."

Dr Ajuonuma urged anyone in doubt of Dr Lukman's claim to verify from the office of the Vice President, adding that he hoped the clarification would put an end to all the attacks on the person of the Minister who has served the country meritoriously in various capacities over the past two and a half decades.