By Adedayo Odulaja
The fuel scarcity that gripped Nigeria since the past few weeks can rightly be described as perhaps the worst in the recent history of the country.
Its impact is even more telling as it began a few weeks after the conclusion of the much-talked about 2015 general elections which became somewhat long-drawn on its own.
With the Presidential leg of the election, the last in the line-up concluded finally, the air of expectation was palpable in the country. But without warning, it all came down to a grinding halt with the crippling fuel scarcity occasioned mainly by a strike called by petroleum marketers across the country. Since kicking off sometime in April, it gradually got worse until it reached its peak around the third week in May.
It is difficult to recall a time the fuel situation has been so bad in Nigeria’s recent history, so much so that corporate organisations would issue statements about likely disruptions, let alone announce partial or total closure of operations due to the raging fuel scarcity and lack of fuel to power their equipment.
Among entertainers who must have been affected one way or the other by the raging scarcity, which has not completely abated about a month and half since it began by the way, is Iyanya.
The TripleMG lead act was forced to abandon plans to honour an appearance commitment in the West African country of Liberia. According to the Project Fame winner, he had to abandon the trip after several airlines including the one booked by the music star, cancelled flights to the West African country and several other routes due to lack of Aviation fuel.
‘I was meant to perform today in Liberia for the Ebola Free Concert, was due to travel on Friday that didn’t happen, Saturday no way.
‘All this was caused by flight cancellations by one of the airlines. Now the show has to be rescheduled for a later date. #Sad, the ‘Oreo’ singer had lamented in a tweet on Sunday, May 24, 2015.
Like him, another notable musician, Bez Idakula expressed his disappointment via an Instagram post, writing: ‘At the Airport… 7am flight is still pending, No Aviation fuel, only 1 flight has left the airport today, some airlines have shutdown for the day.’
The message is never likely to be lost on a keen observed who notes the number of hashtags he employed for emphasis: #BiggestAfricanNation #BiggestAfricanEconomy #GiantOfAfrica #OilProducingNation #NoLight #NoFuel #2015.
Superstar actress, Omotola painted an even gloomier picture with her straightforward tweet in the afternoon of May 22, 2015: ‘No light, No fuel, No diesel…Nigerians are silent hmm…’
If the loss of revenue by airlines, forced to operate at less than 20% capacity while the fuel scarcity lasted, is put at millions, imagine what this means for entertainers who could not keep up with appointments within and outside the country during the time.
Many, including comedians, actors, OAPs and others, would have lost so much even if any of them did not make it public like Iyanya or Bez did.
Speaking to Encomium on the fuel scarcity saga recently, ace comedian, Julius Agwu said: ‘Fuel scarcity is really biting hard and affecting every sector of the economy. From the manufacturing service sector and entertainment industry, the scarcity for fuel has paralysed business. We all need fuel to power our generators, for industrial, office and domestic use.
‘This fuel scarcity is killing business and the Federal Government should save Nigerians from these problems. To avoid this, we need to fix our refineries.’
Another set of entertainers badly hit are movie producers and music video directors who have hired instruments long before the time and will have to cough out additional sums of money due to the paralysing scarcity of fuel to even move around before talking of keeping the show on.
Of course, the Genius, as the comedian is also known, is not alone. It is not for nothing that many have described the acute lack of fuel as unprecedented in the nation’s history. Several radio stations, telcos, airlines and even banks hitherto known to be somewhat immune to such happenings, had to announce shutting down operations totally or partially.
A statement released by the telco firm reads: ‘The management of MTN states that the current diesel scarcity in most parts of Nigeria is posing a significant threat to quality of service and the ability to optimally operate the network.’
The statement, signed by Akinwale Goodluck, MTN’s Corporate Services Executive, added: ‘Most of our base stations and switches are powered round-the-clock by Diesel generators and the current fuel shortage has drastically reduced the availability of diesel supply to key locations.’
In the same vein, Beat 99.9 FM announced via its Twitter handle: ‘We will be shutting at 8.30pm today due to diesel shortage. We have to ration. We will be back on tomorrow. We will keep you updated.’
Soon to follow were the likes of City FM and several others who released statements stating that they were facing difficulties in keeping up with their operations and would, therefore, ration the available fuel in order to provide skeletal services.
By the following day, Airtel submitted in a release that it was also facing problems with restocking diesel to continue to power its base stations. GTBank, Wema Bank, FCMB and others soon followed suit, either through a public statement or direct message to customers.
In all of these, one can hardly calculate the loss of revenue and perhaps litigation that might have become the lot of the companies and other entertainment figures based on scheduled adverts, planned projects and programmes they were left unable to run during the period.
As such, the pain and anguish hotel owners and others in the allied sector must have felt while the fuel scarcity was at its peak remains incalculable.
Speaking on the toll the hardship took on their business for instance, a top staff of a cinema chain in the country told NET that instead of large crowds that would normally fill the halls daily, there were only a handful of people in cinema halls during the period.
‘The sparse crowd we complained of only lasted for some days. By the time it reached its peak, we could not even show movies anymore and had to shut down our operations.
‘And you can see that the situation, although better, has not completely normalised up till now and I cannot even imagine what our figures would look like at the end of this quarter,’ he said.
Aside the fact that many concerts and shows must have been cancelled and movie shoots and music projects jeopardised or suspended, not even showbiz stars could smile while the recent fuel scarcity lasted.
