We have seen this before, haven’t we? Perhaps a dozen or a hundred times, already. It doesn’t seem to matter. A tanker filled to the brim with highly flammable substances, like gasoline or petrol, navigating narrow streets in crowded towns. Sometimes the drivers of these tankers are reckless; sometimes their vehicles are poorly maintained; sometimes the roads are riddled with crater-sized potholes; and sometimes it is just other road users being too cavalier. Always, one of these factors causes the tanker to overturn, spilling fuel onto the streets and into the culverts.
Almost every time, crowds swarm the scene with buckets, jerricans, and even cooking or piss pots to collect the petroleum products, tussling against each other and pushing one another out of the way. There is always a spark. A deafening explosion follows, accompanied by a fire. Always, the death toll rises into the tens, sometimes into the hundreds.
This has happened far too many times. In 2020 alone, the Road Safety Corps reported more than 1,500 accidents involving fuel tankers, resulting in at least 535 fatalities. But perhaps 2020 is too far in the past. Just last month, a fuel tanker collided with a lorry, claiming the lives of 59 people, not counting the cattle being transported.
So, you would think that when a tanker swayed and fell on its side in Majia town, Jigawa State, on October 15, people would flee as far away from the vehicle as possible. Instead, they ran toward it, containers in hand, eager to scoop up fuel.
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So far, about 181 people have been reported dead in the explosion that followed. Tragically, at least two young boys lost their lives while trying to prevent others from rushing toward the tanker before the blast. It is a sad tragedy, a painful and needless loss of life.
In all honesty, it is hard not to feel vexed with many of the victims who, instead of fleeing danger, ran straight into it. Yes, the price of petrol has risen, and scooping it for free to sell for profit might seem like common sense, but they failed to consider that they might be paying with their lives rather than cashing in even a kobo. It doesn’t seem like a wise trade to me.
Some accidents occur where people become victims purely by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But when an accident happens and you choose to run into danger—on the off chance of cashing in by collecting hazardous products in dangerously volatile circumstances—then there is something to be said about that.
Some of these sentiments may sound unkind, but there is nothing more unkind than putting oneself in harm’s way and causing grief to one’s family and loved ones.
While the incident in Majia was unfolding in Jigawa, another oil tanker overturned in Ibafo, Ogun State, drenching the front yard of a bank in fuel before exploding. Fortunately, no one was reported killed in that incident, so the property damage seemed minor.
If we look closely enough, we will find scapegoats for this incident. We could blame the driver, the company he worked for, or other road users who might have caused the accident. However, the reality is that despite following the best safety measures, accidents are bound to happen, which is why they are called accidents.
This means that when these incidents occur, Nigerians should not be dying in these explosions while trying to scoop fuel. If the numerous previous cases haven’t convinced some people of the dangers inherent in these actions, then I am afraid there is little that can be done to help.
Desperation should never be an excuse for reckless behaviour. I cannot emphasise enough that it is high time Nigerians took responsibility for certain things, particularly their own lives. We have coined the expression of praying that Nigeria should not happen to us. While that is true on most occasions, there are times when we must ensure that we do not happen to ourselves as we have to Nigeria as well. Our bane is not just a failure of the Nigerian state but a regular failure of our common sense.
Having said that, it appears we are trapped in an endless cycle of pain and death—of tanker spills and explosions, with streets littered with charred corpses. We are also all too familiar with bloated bodies floating down our waterways every year when our rivers flood.
The frequency with which floods occur is cause enough to take pre-emptive actions that will minimise the impacts of these floods and the resulting loss of lives and property. While we can often blame the state for not properly resettling flood victims, for outrightly opening dams and flooding villages, or for neglecting dams in need of repairs until they burst and flood cities, as happened recently in Maiduguri, we must consider the bigger picture.
By this time, Nigeria must have a comprehensive map of flood-prone areas in the country. We must adopt proactive measures to prevent the victimisation of our people, such as dredging waterways and rivers, ensuring compliance with building and safety regulations, or, where necessary, resettling communities.
I know some state governments have a habit of allocating plots of land in the middle of nowhere and asking victims to relocate to those areas. That is not sustainable, as the subsistence of the people, their economy, and their ways of life must be taken into consideration.
You don’t ask a community of fishermen to relocate to land far removed from their source of livelihood and expect compliance; you certainly can’t expect these relocations to occur where there are no infrastructures in the new locations.
The solutions must therefore be organic and tailored to the specific localised needs of the communities. If the state makes an effort to address the most urgent situations, it will save money currently expended on procuring relief materials and implementing temporary solutions to long-term problems.
As for the other menace of tanker explosions, the Federal Road Safety Corps needs to take proactive measures to inspect tankers and other vehicles transporting hazardous materials across the country. They must regularly certify the vehicles and their operators and periodically train them on safety manoeuvres.
While enforcing speed limit regulations on highways and in towns should be diligently monitored; it may be necessary to restrict these vehicles from towns and urban areas during certain hours of the day. While all of this is done, it will still be necessary to remind people to apply common sense in the event of an accident. This can be achieved through appropriate sensitisation and awareness efforts.
It is not enough to fold our hands and wait for the next tanker explosion or flood. We must take control of these situations and do what we can to prevent them. That is why we have common sense, after all.
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