Tanker explosions and good governance

Seven years after, it is a sad commentary that we are still “roasting” humans on account of what the media misleadingly present as “accidental explosions” when indeed it is lack of governance in Nigeria. When “accidents” get frequent, they are no more accidents that take place after some precautions but they are incidents criminally caused […]

Seven years after, it is a sad commentary that we are still “roasting” humans on account of what the media misleadingly present as “accidental explosions” when indeed it is lack of governance in Nigeria. When “accidents” get frequent, they are no more accidents that take place after some precautions but they are incidents criminally caused by lack of governance (in this case) of the production and distribution of petroleum products. Since the carnage which took place at Eleme Junction of the city in 2008, there had been scores of episodic tanker explosions with all the attendant human misery. Indeed explosions via moving tankers are fast becoming a national malaise and national trade mark.
My dear brother and latest activist, Corp Marshal of The Federal Road Safety Corps FRSC, Boboye Oyeyemi, has been doing a good job to promote safety awareness on our roads. He rightly clarified that 46 casualties were recorded at the tanker tragedy that occurred in Upper Iweka, Onitsha, Anambra State last week contrary to the 70 reported in the media. But given that many uncounted poor lot also sustained multiple degrees of burns at that singular carnage, maybe it is better we lament human tragedy rather than reducing it to correct statistics. No tragedy is good enough on account of the correctness of the figure of its casualties. Since Anambra carnage, another tanker had fallen  around Iyana Ipaja in Lagos on Monday after which there had been  another explosion at Idimu bus stop of Egbeda, Lagos with several residential apartments affected, confirming that this serial madness are no accidents but avoidable incidents if we had governments on duty. Indeed on Tuesday, another tanker, loaded with kerosene crashed at Magbon area of Badagry, Lagos, spilling all its products luckily “did not result in an inferno”. In 2008, our cities almost “competed” (as it were!), with notorious Iraqi cities in explosions (albeit, without declaration of war)! In 2015, Tankers’ explosions had unacceptably taken lives just as many as Boko Haram insurgency does in recent times.
What is clearly worrisome is that there is no desirable official policy discourse on the prevention and management of these serial road mayhems apart from the fashionable rhetorical consolation of victims. It was as if there was official conspiracy to criminally let the fuel tankers further worsen the life-expectancy of the increasingly impoverished citizens. There is no doubt that the petroleum down-stream sector with respect to products’ sourcing and distribution has virtually collapsed further indicating that we are having a failing state in our hands.  As I have argued before, it was unthinkable in the 60s and 70s to see tankers lifting highly inflammable oil as if it was tomatoes the way these moving bombs called tankers have proved suicidal on also ever suicidal roads. There was once a Nigeria in which refineries and pipelines worked making mass imports via Lagos unthinkable. Limited imports for the so-called bridging were carried via functioning railways. Bad enough! Today there is wholesale dependency on oil imports. Worse too! With total collapse of railways, we literally plant bombs throughout the country via miserable tankers carrying inflammable fuel. If there is a global rating on Safety just as Corruption, I bet that Nigeria will lead from the rear. Moving products over thousands of Kilometres around the country on bad and worse roads is clearly unacceptable. The trucks are mostly old thereby hindering efficient products distribution. In addition, the weight of loaded trucks further damages the already bad roads. The poor state of the trucks and the suicidal orientation of the untrained and clear un-trainable drivers have resulted in many accidents. The challenge is to urgently reinvent the Railways. Rail transportation remains one of the safest cheapest means of transportation. The system requires massive injection of funds to upgrade its tracks to standard gauge and modernize the wagon and haulage facilities.
A country that proudly shares excess crude receipts among all tires of government should certainly spend this excess to fix the bad roads and above all put coaches back on rail tracks and reorganize its society to halt the current human wastage. Buhari and Osinbajo presidency must hit the ground running and deepen the ongoing revival of the railways through massive public investment that will in turn create mass sustainable jobs for millions of unemployed youths and above all safely deliver critical products like petrol.