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Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan went tough yesterday on the fuel crisis rocking the country as he directed Ministers of Petroleum Resources and Power not to travel for the Christmas and New Year holidays. They are to stay back in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja and devise solutions to the fuel problem. Information and Communi-cations Minister Dora Akunyili, who disclosed this yesterday while fielding questions from State House correspondents at the end of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting in Abuja, said the vice-president immediately after the meeting went into the first phase of the joint meetings in his office with Dr. Rilwanu Lukman (Minister of Petroleum Resources), Mr. Odein Ajumogobia (Minister of State for Petroleum Resources), Mr. Lanre Babalola (Minister of Power) and Mr. Sowho Wya (Minister of State for Power), who are the affected ministers. Long fuel queues had resurfaced about two weeks ago across the country, the worst hit being Lagos and Abuja . The fuel problem has taken its toll on commercial activities in the affected cities as transport fares have jumped up while the long queues and frantic search for petrol have also created huge traffic. Meanwhile, the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and Nigerian Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) have traded claims over the real cause of the fuel scarcity. Akunyili said: �And because of the seriousness of the issue as we are speaking and reporting this afternoon, the VP is holding a meeting in his office with the Ministers of Petroleum and Power. Again, there are other meetings slated for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. �As most of you must have gone home and enjoying your Christmas, today the VP has directed some ministers that they are not going on any holiday because of this fuel and power, they have meetings on Monday 2.00pm, they have meeting on Tuesday, they have meeting on Wednesday, in fact that one we call it mini-FEC, but many of us would not be there. �The VP has openly told them that there is no holiday for them because they cannot afford to go on holidays when people are suffering. They must stay back with him and find out ways of easing out the problems because Nigerians are suffering, no doubt, we are worried, we are torched, but help us to do something systematic.� Government has declared today and tomorrow as public holiday for the Christmas celebration while the New Year public holiday is yet to be announced. Akunyili further explained that because of the seriousness of the fuel crisis, the issue was discussed by Council extensively as Jonathan directed the Petroleum and Resources Ministers to explain to Council the extent of the problem and the measures already adopted by them to address the issue. She said from the explanations, it became apparent that the problem was created and compounded by panic buying, hoarding, artificial scarcity and sabotage by petroleum marketers. �Like in the FEC meeting of today, we discussed it extensively and the VP asked the ministers of petroleum to tell us what the problem is and they outlined the problems and one of them is that people are hoarding the fuel, there will be 10 pumps and they will be using one and the Minister of State for Petroleum was going round to check the pumps, some of us saw him on the TV, it was not a show, it was real business. �Some of these people even went ahead and vandalised some of the serving points to prove that they are using one because the other ones have gone bad. It is sabotage, it is not patriotism, it is wickedness. Again, you have some people buying fuel and offloading it and off to buy again, it is panic buying. If we just get too angry it would not solve anything. In fact, when you get too angry you would not be able to reason properly,� the minister said. Akunyili, who also urged reporters to apply caution in the reportage of the fuel crisis, explained that the ministers and top government officials are not insulated from the pains of the fuel problems, noting that �we are not foreigners, we are Nigerians, we are going through what you are going through in one way or the other like my own driver stayed in the filling stations for hours. So, we are not insulated from the problems, we feel your pains, we are going through the same pain. But we have to do something constructive, which we are doing right now�.