The Lagos State Government on Wednesday vowed to shut petrol stations that fail to ensure their customers maintain a lane while dispensing fuel.
The warning was handed down at a joint news conference by the Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr Steve Ayorinde and the Commissioner for Transportation, Dr Dayo Mobereola in Alausa.
Mobereola said the new regulation was expected to bring sanity to the roads even as concerted efforts were being made by the Federal Government to find a lasting solution to the lingering fuel scarcity.
Mobereola said it was the responsibility of the dispensing stations to ensure that queues were managed appropriately.
He said vehicles that go beyond the approved lane would be impounded and fined.
Mobereola said that mobile courts would be used to try erring motorists.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the development is coming following the long and rowdy queues at filling stations and the attendant traffic gridlock.
“The problem in the last few days has been one of traffic blockage caused by fuel dispensation and as a result of that, the state has been almost at a standstill.
“The ease of making traffic very easy should be the responsibility of everybody from the state to the filling stations and the users,” Mobereola said.
He said that the State Government was aware of the difficulty residents had been encountering in their bid to fuel their vehicles and power their generating sets.
Ayorinde also said that the manner in which the filling stations were administering the sale of fuel was no longer acceptable.
“Indiscriminate queues that block traffic and easy flow of movement in the state are no longer allowed.
“Wherever this happens, we will have to deal decisively with erring filling stations according to the law,” Ayorinde said.
The commissioner, who expressed the hope that the issue of fuel scarcity would soon be a thing of the past, said that the regulation would not be a one-off thing.
On enforcement of the regulation, the Chief Executive Officer of the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA), Mr Chris Olakpe, said that erring motorists whose vehicles and motorcycles are impounded would pay between N10,000 and N100,00.
Olakpe said that for towing, cars and motorcycles would pay N10,000, articulated vehicles and trailer loaded with fuel would pay N100,000, and a lorry without cargo would pay N50,000.
He said that articulated vehicles would be fined N50,000 for wilful obstruction, while cars and motorcycles would pay N20,000 and N10,000 respectively. (NAN)