…owners pumping fuel into another tanker
Dayo Emmanuel
Commuters along Lambe-Giwa axis of Ogun State have called on the state government to come to their aid regarding the terrible state of the access road in the area.
At about 7am Thursday morning, a commuter, Ade Olayinka made an SOS call to the newsroom of National Wire (nationalwire.com.ng) on an emergency in the area.
“A petrol tanker is stuck on the only passable portion of the road here around Lambe, Ogun State. This is a portion where vehicles must wait for oncoming ones as the space can’t contain two vehicles side by side at the same time. The government should come to our rescue!” Olayinka exclaimed.
The caller, who runs business at Ifako Ijaiye in Lagos State hailed the Lagos State government, saying such thing cannot happen in the state without swift government intervention.
“This kind of ugly thing cannot happen in Lagos State where government’s response to emergency is swift,” Olayinka said, explaining further that, “Instead of bringing a vehicle to move the tanker loaded with petrol away from the busy road, the owners have brought an empty tanker with a pumping machine to transload the fuel while road users including school children wait helplessly in the crowd inhailing petrol.”
“While the pumping machine pumps the 33,000 litres of petrol into another tanker from the stuck tanker that had closed the bad road, scores of okada riders, tricycles, commercial vehicles and private vehicles conveying people to work in neighbouring Lagos State are stuck, watching helplessly,” Olayinka explained.
While the Ogun State government may not even be aware of this daisy situation, only providence is left to see the people through while the exercise lasts as there is no stationed fire fighting equipment in case of a fire outbreak.
Able bodied commuters have however taken to their heels in a long survival walk away from the point close to a big privately owned school with a lot of school pupils, while the inquisitive ones watch and imagining what happens if fire breaks, an outcome which no one ever prays for.
The Ogun State government should as a matter of urgency fix the roads connecting the state to Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial nerve centre, where the majority in such Ogun communities earn their daily living.
Story by Dayo Emmanuel
Photo credit: Ade Olayinka
