The Nigerian Parliament on Wednesday launched an investigation to determine actual volume of fuel consumed in the country. Besides, another team of parliamentarians empanelled by the House are also assessing the current state of the countries refineries and how to put life back into them.

Nigeria’s four refineries have been dysfunctional for year yet consuming billion of dollars in their idleness.

On fuel consumption, the leadership of the Parliament appeared not convinced at the figures deployed to import fuel into the country. “We have had figures bandied here and there without any authenticity. Before we can even begin to talk about subsidy, we need to know how much fuel we are consuming as a nation”, Femi Gbajabiamila, the speaker of the Parliament told his colleagues during the inauguration of the panels.

On the refineries, he said “your Committee is to let this House know the state of disrepair or repair and determine what will be needed to bring them back to life again”. The two committees have four weeks to bring back their findings to the House.

However, Gbajabiamila told them “not to restrict (their) source of information to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation alone but reach out to other sources including international experts, organised labour, transport unions and every other organisation that deals with facts and documents”.