The House of Representatives has intervened in the leadership crisis rocking the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) with a view to averting an impending fuel scarcity that the crisis could cause.
The decision followed a motion on matters of urgent national importance moved by Hon. Dakuku Peterside (APC, Rivers), notifying members of the urgent need to intervene in order to save the public from suffering untold hardship on account of the crisis.
Dakuku, a petroleum marketer, warned that the crisis in IPMAN had a strong relationship with any incident of fuel scarcity that might likely “occur in the nearest future if nothing is done to avert it.”
He said: “IPMAN controls the largest percentage of petroleum circulation and supply in the country with a huge influence on the market, and when things go wrong with members and they take action, it is the Nigerian public that ultimately bears the consequences as their services affect everything in the society.
“This motion simply seeks to urge the House to wade into the matter with a view to bringing it under control through the intervention of relevant Committees of the House.”
Speaker Aminu Waziri Tambuwal in ruling on the matter urged the mover of the motion to avoid the temptation of touching on the leadership tussle itself and focus on the implications of it since the matter had been taken to court.
In a related development, the House has called on security agencies to take urgent steps to ensure the protection of travellers and motorists on Makurdi/Naka Federal Interstate highway.
They were also to evacuate those herdsmen who had settled on ancestral farmlands and taken possession of houses in Gwer West local government.
It also called on the federal government to compensate the farmers who had lost their farmlands and farm crops and hence lost their means of livelihood.
This followed a motion of urgent public importance raise by Christiana Alaga (Benue, PDP), a motion on alleged use of chemical weapons on defenceless farmers in her constituency.
She lamented that most farmlands and settlements along those federal roads had been taken over by “these herdsmen who graze their cattle on farm crops left behind by fleeing farmers.”
