- blames vandals
President Muhammadu Buhari has expressed regret over the unnecessary loss of lives and property as a result of the pipeline explosion in the Osisioma Ngwa community of Abia State on Friday.
The president’s condolence message was contained in a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Malam Garba Shehu, in Abuja on Saturday.
President Buhari sympathised with those who lost their loved ones in the unfortunate incident.
He urged communities and state governments hosting oil pipelines to be more vigilant and rise to combat the challenge posed by pipeline vandalism.
He also appealed to host communities to collaborate with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to tame oil pipeline vandalism in their areas.
The president noted that the “Enugu depot of the NNPC has been repaired and ready to function, but remains idle today because of the vandals.’’
Preliminary reports by the NNPC had indicated that the incident was not an accidental explosion, but a result of vandals who pilloried the pipelines to scoop the products.
The reports further shows that “despite repeated warnings, these unscrupulous people have vandalised that particular pipeline 684 times in the last six months alone.
“Each time the pipeline is repaired, they resume their activities, even collaborating with security agents, who are reported to have set up toll gates collecting fees from the vandals.
“A fight broke out as a heist was going on and there was shooting, which is believed to have ignited Friday morning’s explosion, during which three security personnel also lost their lives.’’
- Senate probes incident
Already, the Senate has directed its Committees on Petroleum (downstream) and Police Affairs to investigate the pipeline explosion which killed many people.
The upper chamber of the National Assembly, at the plenary on Wednesday, mandated the committees to critically investigate the causes of the inferno and recommend the appropriate compensation for the families of the victims.
The lawmakers also urged the National Emergency Management Agency to immediately send relief materials to the affected communities, while calling on the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and the Department of Petroleum Resources to commence immediate repairs on the leaking pipeline.
These were the resolutions made by the lawmakers following the adoption of a motion by Senator Theodore Orji (PDP, Abia) on the incident.
Leading the debate on the motion, Orji accused some officials of the NNPC and men of the Nigeria Police Force of complicity.
The lawmaker, who said 250 people had so far died, alleged that the negligence of duty on the part of the NNPC and corruption by the police made the tragedy to occur.
He lamented that the pipeline had been leaking for some time and the NNPC failed to fix it despite several reminders by leaders of the communities.
Orji said the leakage became much and attracted members of the affected communities who scooped fuel from the pipeline, as a result of which a cell phone ignited the fire “which unleashed mayhem on those around the scene of the incident and even beyond.”
On the day of the incident, the senator said, “The policemen drafted to prevent people from scooping fuel went and compromised themselves by charging the villagers N1, 000 to N2, 000 each in order to be allowed to scoop fuel.
“There were policemen guiding the area but instead of preventing them, they went ahead extorting money from the villagers to allow them to scoop fuel until somebody ignited fire on the fuel and there was mayhem leading to the death of over 250 as of today. The situation we found in those communities is agony, hardship wailing and grief.”
Orji added that many people that sustained varying degrees of injuries were still in the hospitals receiving treatment at different locations in the state.
Meanwhile, while fielding questions from journalists after the plenary, Orji lamented that the NNPC had allegedly not shown any empathy to the victims of the mayhem despite the fact that its management was duly informed of the havoc that the fuel leakage portended for the people of the communities.
He demanded compensation from the corporation for the victims of the inferno.
NAN/Punch
