They needed not to have died the way they did. And the fuel tanker explosion in Niger State in which they perished didn’t have to have happened where it did. This is what makes the January 18 accident so tragic – so unnecessarily tragic.
The story, as we were told, was that a fuel tanker exploded that early Saturday morning near Suleja, killing over 98 people and injuring dozens. The blast, according to Al Jazeera, occurred when “individuals attempted to transfer gasoline (petrol) from one tanker into another truck using a generator.” The broadcaster quoted Ibrahim Audu Husseini, spokesman for he National Emergency Management Agency in Niger state as saying, “The final death toll from the tanker explosion is (98). We buried 86 burnt corpses between 12:00 pm yesterday to 2:00 am of today,” updating an earlier toll of 70. “It took us 14 hours to bury the bodies because we couldn’t get excavators and had to get locals to dig the mass grave manually.” He said 52 other people suffered “severe burns from the explosion”.The NEMA had earlier said in a statement that 15 shops had been destroyed in the explosion.
Kumar Tsukwam, a sector commander for Niger State with the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), told Al Jazeera that people rushed to scoop up the spilled petrol after the truck overturned. “The tanker burst into flames, engulfing another tanker,” he said in a statement. Most of the victims were burnt beyond recognition,” Tsukwam said. “We are at the scene to clear things up,” he said, adding that firefighters had managed to put out the fire.
Mohammed Bago, the Niger governor, confirmed the incident in a statement and said that many people are believed to have perished in a huge fire caused by the tanker explosion. He described the incident as “worrisome, heartbreaking, and unfortunate”.
Such accidents have become worryingly frequent in Nigeria, killing dozens of people grappling with very high costs of living.
The price of petrol here has soared more than 400 percent since President Bola Tinubu scrapped a decades-old subsidy when he came into office in May 2023. This has led many to risk their lives to recover fuel during tanker truck accidents that they would then sell.
In October 2024, more than 150 people were killed after a nearly identical incident took place in the Jigawa State. About 100 other people were also injured in that incident, with a growing crowd approaching an overturned tanker to pick up fuel that they could then sell in the black market. Many of the victims were buried together in a large funeral organized by the authorities. In September of the same year, another 59 people were killed in Niger State after a fuel tanker collided with a truck carrying passengers and cattle.
After the October incident, President Tinubu reaffirmed the government’s commitment to reviewing and enhancing fuel transportation safety protocols. He also said police would strengthen measures to prevent further accidents, including increased patrols, stricter enforcement of safety regulations, and other highway safety mechanisms.
However, these measures don’t seem to be working as the frequency of fuel tanker explosions hasn’t dropped or stopped altogether. What more, many more people still risk their lives in the process of making some few naira from such accidents. This seeming policy failure is either a result of weak implementation and lack of follow-up or both. The official line is to talk tough while the accident is still fresh and lie back when memory fades. Meanwhile, people desperate to survive are prepared to trust their luck no matter how life threatening the prevailing circumstances. As one popular musician says, “when the going gets tough, the tough get going.” But when you die, the going also stops. Better the words of our own the late music icon Sonny Okosun, ” nothing good comes easy.” To enjoy good life demands hard work. Our people need to know this. Nothing can ever replace industry as the key to living well. The Scriptures instruct this, saying he who refuses to work with their hands mustn’t eat. This is at the individual’s level.
The government must not remove its hand now having put it on the plow. If the measures it has so employed haven’t worked, there is need to find out why and try new ones. It must also be seen to walk its talk. Follow through tough talk with brisk action. Talking about policy, what happened to a federal plan many years back to ferry petrol by rail instead of on roads? It was well received then because it seemed right and workable. It would be cheaper, safer for everyone and increase the lifespan of our highways. Heavy duty tankers destroy roads, and if not repaired, they cause tankers to overturn and spill their content, which is highly combustible. It is good to have comfortable passenger trains back. It will be better still to return the goods trains too to carry such inflammable stuff as petrol not through populated human settlements.
