The Inspector General of Police, IGP Solomon E. Arase, has directed all Zonal Assistant Inspectors-General of Police and FCT/State Commands Commissioners of Police to arrest anybody found selling petrol and other petroleum products in plastic container.
The IGP stated this in a press release made available to the press by the Force Public Relations Officer, Force Headquarters, ACP Olabisi Kolawole.
The IGP, who issued the directives in Abuja on Monday (April 25), warned fuel attendants at filling stations to desist from selling petrol inside jerry-can/plastic container, the Inspector-General of Police said both the buyers and the sellers of the products will be arrested and prosecuted under the law.
The statement said that the Inspector General was concerned by untold suffering as well as hazard emanating from the activities of black marketers, especially those who sell petroleum products inside plastic containers/jerry-cans.
The ban on the use of jerry cans to buy fuel might inflict more difficulty on Nigerians who have had little or no electricity recently and have had to depend on generators to run their businesses.
Meanwhile, Nigerians have had nothing but knocks for the IGP on the Police Force’s official Twitter handle over the directive.
@PoliceNG in countries where fuel aren’t sold in cans n kegs, they av 24hrs uninterrupted power supply. Yeye
— Hunter’s Joy (@EEteajhay) April 26, 2016
@PoliceNG
Has the IG now become a law making body ni? Naijaaaaaa!!! Why didn’t he react like dis to fulani herdsmen activities of recent?— femi David (@femitemplar1) April 26, 2016
@policeng let the order include filling station attendants, who sells to these vendors in jerry-cans
— barango,lolo.P (@BarangoP) April 26, 2016
@PoliceNG and polytene bags too ????????????
— NAIJA ᴮᴿᴱᴱᴰ (@Batrammm) April 26, 2016
@PoliceNG And which section of the law bans individual from selling petrol in cans
— Michael Ojalatan (@ojalatan1) April 26, 2016
@PoliceNG how do you expect us to fuel our gen set?
— Idris Olabode Badiru (@bodebadru) April 26, 2016
@PoliceNG, so, how do you want us to get fuel for our generator or it just another of making ur boys to take bribe
— hola (@ayanbolalekan) April 26, 2016
@policeng, let the president make the fuel available not arresting the BLACK MARKETERS.
— EDMUND PETER (@edmundpeter83) April 26, 2016
DanielFayemi for encomium.ng