Before May 29, the inauguration date for coming administration of Muhammadu Buhari‎ as the President and Commander-in-chief of the Federal Republic, the Nigerian economy may have finally grounded.
This is because since the end of the general elections in the country on April 11, the electricity supply has completely worsened. Then, the usual petroleum products crises continued, this time, in larger proportion.

The battle line has been between petroleum products marketers and the government over non payment of ‎subsidy claims. While marketers accused government of holding on to their funds, government through the minister of Finance and Coordinator of Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonji Iweala has at several time denied government’s indebtedness to marketers to the tune they are claiming.
It has been series of strike actions by various groups and categories of workers in the Oil and Gas sector. From one to the other protesting against either one government policy of action. It started with the Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN), then Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN). Petroleum Tankers Drivers followed suit with their own quarrel.
The situation aggravated as the both the Electricity Generation and Distribution companies have roundly failed to give Nigerians light they pay for for months.
Their flimsy excuses comes from either non availability of gas to power generation plants to vandalism of gas pipelines and electricity equipment.
Today, Petroleum and Gas Senior Staff Association (PENGASSAN) and the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) have ‎shut down all their operations nationwide.
The unions have directed employees of the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC), a subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to shutdown indefinitely their locations and all oil production facilities nationwide in a bid to force the minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke and the federal government to reverse the transfer of operatorship of OMLs 42, 40 and 30.
The assets were previously operated by Shell.
The directive to shutdown the facilities was issued Monday by the executive councils of the
All branch chairmen of the powerful unions have been directed to fully implement the directive starting from Wednesday, May 20, 2015.
The unions are aggrieved that the sale of the assets did not follow due process and would affect the fortunes of the NPDC and its workers.
Mr. Emeka Offor’s Elcrest Exploration and Production Nigeria Limited, a joint venture company of Eland Oil & Gas Plc, was awarded the operatorship of OML 40, while Mr. Ernest Ezedialu Obiejesi’s NECONDE is the operator of OML 42.
Sources disclosed that the three flow stations owed by the companies have already been shutdown in the creeks of the Niger Delta ahead of Wednesday’s total shutdown.
Nigeria is the largest producer of crude oil in Africa with an estimated daily production capacity of 2.2 million barrels per day.
It is feared that if this continued till May 29 hand over date, the country may have crumbled.
Already, fuel scarcity has persisted in the country in the past months with prices of fuel per litre is been sold at high time cost of ‎between N200 and N250 at filling stations and over N300 in the ‘black market’.
The products shortage has already dealt a heavy blow on the nation’s sick economy with both consumable and commodity goods have skyrockets beyond the reach of the commons.
With no electricity and no fuel, Nigerians are only sitting on a time bomb and waiting for the explosion date.
(Dennis Mernyi, THE SUN)