Thursday 27 June 2013

Here we go again: Explosion in Lagos as vandals rupture NNPC pipeline

There was an explosion in Lagos on Wednesday after vandals ruptured an oil pipeline belonging to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation at Akinbo Island.

PUNCH Metro learnt that the culprits came to the jetty in three barges and canoes around 1am and ruptured the splash zone of the pipeline and siphoned thousands of litres of petrol into jerry cans and operated for hours undeterred.

However, around 4.30am, there was a fire outbreak and the pipe through which they siphoned the fuel as well as a canoe were engulfed in flames.
The spokesperson, NEMA, South-West Zone, Ibrahim Farinloye, said, “The fire started at midnight between 1am and 4am. On getting there, we could not move too close because the fire was intense. However, the fire was put out around 10:48am.

We did not see any corpses and we cannot say if anyone was injured. We however recovered a 16mm hose used by the vandals as well as parts of boats used by them
We have two security posts and an observatory tower here just about 200 metres away. We have about 50 policemen, 47 naval personnel stationed here. Some NSCDC personnel also patrol the area but they are not here all the time,” he said.

What were all the securities not far away doing? Questions should be asked and answers given. We have to start holding people responsible.

Let just hope this does not affect the supply of petrol.

Culled from Punch.

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