Another fire outbreak rocks Amuwo Odofin

COMFORT EKELEME

There was yet again another fire outbreak on Sunday at Agboju Amuwo area in Amuwo Odofin Local Government of Lagos State.

The yesterday’s fire incident came  barely a week after an explosion rocked  Soba, Abule Ado area of the same LGA, where 23 people were confirmed dead and several others  injured with properties worth millions of naira destroyed.

As at the time of filing this report, the cause of the latest fire was yet to be ascertained.  But several tweets indicated that the fire started before noon.

The fire incident which broke out at Yaya close, off Casco Street, Agboju, held on for a while before the youths in the community could contain it thus preventing it from spreading to nearby buildings.

Sources said that the fire authorities were contacted but did not show up on time, leaving the youths to handle the situation themselves.

It would be recalled that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) had said the On the Abule-Ado explosion happened when gas cylinders were hit by a truck in the area where NNPC has its pipelines.

According  Akinbode Oluwafemi, ERA/FoEN, Deputy Executive Director, said the explosion could be likened to some military aerial bombardment and does not sound like pipeline explosion.

“There is something suspiciously different about this explosion. The scale of destruction is nothing like any of   the pipeline explosions we have monitored and documented for several decades,” the statement read.

“The Sunday incident’s scale of destruction could only be likened to military grade explosions or aerial bombardment. We can’t treat this casually as an accident caused by a truck.

“With the current security without conducting forensic investigations on this particular blast. Not even the accidental detonation of bombs at the Ikeja cantonment caused this scale of destruction and ruins. Government must conduct comprehensive investigation to establish if this was a crime or an accident.

“And there are questions begging for answers: Who drove the truck? What is the truck doing on a pipeline on Sunday morning? Was the gas plant opened on a Sunday? Was the content of the truck weaponized? And for the NNPC that has admitted some level of culpability by confirming that the primary explosion came from its gas truck, it should immediately initiate the process of providing remediation for the affected families and businesses while its officials found to have through negligence orchestrated this massive destruction should be made to face the law,” he said.

The group asked the federal government not to conclude that the incident was an accident, adding that the accounts of the NNPC on the real cause of the blast is “unconvincing and raises some questions.

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