…..Buhari mourns
No fewer than 30 persons have been reported dead In The Kogi Fire Disaster That Resulted From The Fuel Tanker that lost control, rammed into vehicles and exploded around Felele area of Lokoja, Kogi State capital.
Though the Federal Road Safety Corps, FRSC, put the casualties figure at 23, sources said it was more, if those who sustained injuries and later died in the hospital are counted.
Five students of Kogi State Polytechnic, three primary school children, their father and another woman with her two kids, have been confirmed to be among the casualties.
Also killed in the inferno was a businessman identified simply as Pastor Samson, his wife and three children, who until his death was a member of Baptist Church, Felele.
Mr. Samson, a dealer in sewing machines, was on his way to drop his children off at school, as he normally does, when the accident occurred.
The petrol-laden tanker, property of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, was said to have suffered brake failure around 8:30a.m. and rammed into five cars, two motorbikes and three tricycles, popularly known as Keke NAPEP, killing all occupants.
Reacting to the petroleum tanker explosion on Wednesday morning in Lokoja, the Kogi State Capital which claimed the lives of travellers, school children, bystanders, including some students of Kogi State Polytechnic, President Buhari said that “I am seriously worried about the frequency of these unfortunate and large scale tragedies in the country which cause needless deaths.”
The President in a statement issued by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu said, “these frequent incidents that result in loss of lives and property are a national scandal caused by our indifference to safety standards.”
He explained that “many accidents are preventable if proper proactive and precautionary measures are put in place or properly observed as routine policies.”
President Buhari regretted that “ours is a country where we move on whenever tragedies occur instead of taking preventive safety measures to forestall future calamities.”
He called on the county’s transport authorities, traffic and road management agencies as well as law enforcement officials to sit up and enforce safety standards with more seriousness, adding that “refusal to do the right thing can cause potential tragic problems that harm innocent people”.
According to him, “Nigeria is not having a shortage of laws and regulations, but our problem is lack of zeal to enforce those laws and regulations for the sake of public safety.”
He condoled with Kogi State government and the families of the victims of the tragedy.
