Okene: How tanker/bus collision claimed 8 lives

around 7.30am, people had as usual set out for their respective daily activities. Travellers had hoped for a hitch-free journey, traders had displayed their wares and many had been on their way to places of work. Private car owners were also on the road, while many others were on commercial motorcycles popularly known as okada. […]

around 7.30am, people had as usual set out for their respective daily activities. Travellers had hoped for a hitch-free journey, traders had displayed their wares and many had been on their way to places of work. Private car owners were also on the road, while many others were on commercial motorcycles popularly known as okada.  

Then the tragedy occured: an articulated vehicle heavily-loaded with petroleum while descending the Obehira slope had brake failure, fell off and caught fire instantly at the Total Filling Station junction in the area. Not only did the trailer ram into and burn stationed vehicles and motorcycles on Abuja-Okene road, its explosion also caused a huge ball of fire that razed the buildings of Mr Biggs Restaurant, a boutique and a bookshop around the area.

 While some of the staff of Guaranty Trust Bank, GTB and Intercontinental Bank around the danger zone hurriedly closed down and took to their heels, other people were running helter-skelter scaling fences. In the end, ten people were reportedly burned beyond recognition, several others sustained injuries and property worth millions of naira lost. Those who lost their property and relations to the unfortunate incident narrated their tales of agony to Weekly Trust.

Our reporters gathered that one AbdulFatai, a commercial driver, had parked his vehicle for several minutes waiting for his conductor to give the go-ahead for the journey to Lokoja when the ill-fated petroleum trailer ushered in the unexpected. His vehicle was among those hit, leaving him dead, but all his passengers escaped unhurt. The passengers, it was gathered, escaped before the explosion occurred. AbdulFatai is gone, but his brother, Ojia Mohammed, while shedding tears profusely, is yet to recover from the shock.

“It happened when nobody expected. I am very sad at the moment. My brother is gone. We were together before that incident. He told me he would give me a phone call on his arrival in Lokoja without knowing that he would never arrive there. His death is a big blow to our family. He has little children who never thought of losing their father so soon,” Mohammed lamented.

The leader of the burnt Episcopal Church of West Africa, ECWA, located at the ever busy Total Filling Station junction in the area, Reverend Stephen Ariba, also recounted his losses.

“The tanker loaded with petroleum product was travelling from Akure, Ondo State and rammed into a parked bus in front of the AP Filling Station and exploded in flames. It was the explosion which splashed the product on the church, burning virtually everything in the church. I must acknowledge the fact that the incident would have been disastrous to the church if members were in the church at that particular moment. We thank God it happened on a Tuesday.

“All the equipment and gadgets in the church were burnt, and that is why we are now appealing to the government and other good-spirited people to come to our aid, so that normal services can resume in the church. We are also using this opportunity to appeal to the government to do something about the narrow nature of the Okene-Lokoja road. If it is dualised, it would reduce the occurrence of accidents. The state government has to do something urgently about this, though it is a federal road,” he said.

An Igbo merchant, Mr Sunday Ugwu, who has lived all his life together with his wife and two children in Okene had his store where he was eking out a living burnt to ashes in the early morning inferno. He said since 1993, he has been in the business of selling tyres and other motor spare parts, but had never witnessed such a loss before. He said he is completely devastated by the incident.

“I was not around when the incident occurred. I left my sales boy in the store. He was the one who called to tell me about what was happening. He said it took the grace of God for him to escape. He told me he just saw the store getting razed as a result of the explosion from the tanker and that there was little or nothing he could do. The whole store was burnt with all the contents.

“As I am talking to you now, all that I had suffered to acquire has gone off in flames. How will I survive? I have a wife and two children. To be honest with you, I foresee a very hard time for my family. I am only hoping that God will intervene,” Ugwu maintained.

Mr Victor Okeme, the branch manager of the GTB bank located at the highbrow area of Okene where the accident happened, said it took the quick intervention of the bank’s security and the efforts of many of the youths in the area for nothing to have happened to the bank.

“The building of our bank is located directly opposite the scene of the accident as you can see. We will continue to appreciate those boys who came to our rescue. All of a sudden, they provided enough water in case the fire extended to the bank. They at least demonstrated concern. Our security guards too were up and doing. It could have been a different story by now.

“Because of the sloppy nature of the location of the bank, the spilled fuel was heading to the bank premises until the security people and God-fearing youths made frantic efforts to save the bank from being burnt. While the youths were gallantly using detergent and water to quench the fire, officials of Total and AP filling stations came out with their fire extinguishers to arrest the situation. Out of panic, my staff jumped over the fence for safety. In the process, three of them sustained minor injuries and they were later treated”, explained the bank manager.

Mr Abedo Samuel, the branch manager of Mr Biggs Restaurant in Okene, said the inferno caught him unawares. He explained that after opening the restaurant for the business of the day, he was standing outside with some customers when he heard somebody shouting that the tanker’s driver had lost control due to brake failure.

“It was an okada rider that was shouting in front of the tanker. We later got to know that the tanker crashed right into an 18-seater bus parked along the road in front of our fast food centre. The surprising thing was that the cyclist who was alerting people to run for safety was himself knocked down and killed by the tanker. The tanker did not burst into flame immediately.  Some people were helping to rescue those who were trapped in the bus, but a minute later, the tanker exploded and they too started running for their lives.

“The inferno destroyed the transformer in front of our restaurant and all the louvres on the building. The funny thing is that the same people who came to help to quench the fire helped themselves to all our chickens, drinks and consumables in the process. It is unfortunate that for our Mr Biggs centre alone, we are now counting losses amounting to N900,000. Some of my some staff scaled over the fence and had their limps and ankles broken”, he said.

Many believe that the inferno would have been less grave if there were had been a fire station office in Okene. They regretted that they had to wait for fire officers from Lokoja, the Kogi State capital, before the situation could be brought under control. They said much havoc had been wreaked before the two vehicles dispatched to the scene of the incident arrived.

“It is a pity that such a thing could happen in a state like Kogi where huge amounts of money are always expended on emergency issues. If a fire service, with functional facilities, were to be available in Okene, perhaps, there would have been fewer casualties,” said Muhammed Yakubu, a resident of Okene.

A fire service officer who spoke to Weekly Trust on condition of anonymity said that after a distress call was received from Okene at about 09.10am on that fateful day, he and his colleagues promptly dispatched two fire-fighting vehicles to the scene of the inferno. The officer revealed that the state fire service has only six fire-fighting vehicles; two stationed at the Eastern Senatorial District and none in the Western and Central zones, adding that the remaining four fire-fighting vehicles are stationed in Lokoja, out of which only two are functional.  

Visiting the scene of the incident the following day, Governor Ibrahim Idris pledged to establish a fire service station in Okene considering the commercial strength of the place. The governor also promised to compensate those who lost property to the incident in order to cushion the effect of the loss suffered, adding that the state government will foot all the hospital bills of the injured.

Reacting to the incident, the Sector Commander of the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), Mr Yomi Asaniyan, posited that “Only caution can help us to salvage the traffic situation in the country”.