Enugu State Governor, Dr. Peter Mbah, has reiterated his call for the enforcement of antispill lock on fuel tankers across the country, saying that disasters arising from tanker-spill had become too frequent.
Mbah restated the call yesterday when he received in his office the Director-General of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Mrs. Zubaida Umar, and her team who were in Enugu to flag-off the distribution of emergency intervention items to the victims of the Saturday tanker fire that caused the loss of several lives on the spot and also consumed several vehicles and goods at Ugwu Onyeama along the Enugu-Onitsha federal highway.
“As I stated when I visited the scene, we have disasters that we know that we obviously could not have envisaged or predicted; and when they happen, we trigger all the responses that we have set up.
“But this issue of tanker fire or explosion is becoming too recurrent and I did call on the law enforcement agencies, particularly the Federal Road Safety Corps FRSC), to ensure the enforcement of the anti-spill lock.
This is because if we have anti-spill lock on those tankers carrying inflammable products like petrol and automotive gas oil, we will then be able to mitigate such disasters because even if the tanker falls, it will still not spill. But what happened in Enugu was a function of the spill of PMS that got into other cars, and they got ignited.
“So, I will always want to use this opportunity again to reiterate my call on the law enforcement agencies to ensure strict enforcement of the antispill lock on all our petroleum product tankers. It is extremely important,” he stated.
The governor explained that his administration was doing everything humanly possible to ensure that the survivors got full medical treatment, noting that the government would bear the full expenses.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Umar, while commiserating with the government and people of Enugu State over the sad incident, commended the governor for showing leadership in the midst of the disaster. “I wish to commend you for the timely visit to the scene of the incident and various decisions made, including ensuring that maximum medical attention was given to the survivors.
“Today’s flag-off of relief assistance to the victims of tanker fire is therefore an outcome of the collaborative initiative, which NEMA has put in place to support the population at risk. It is the collective responsibility of all tiers of government to provide support to disaster victims; hence, NEMA is therefore complementing the efforts of the state government,” she said.
She announced a donation of relief materials consisting of 200 25kgbags of rice, 200 cartons of spaghetti, 20 cartons of five-litre vegetable oil, 20 cartons of seasoning and 20 cartons of tomatoes paste and medicaments and medical consumables to persons affected and impacted by the tanker fire explosion in the state. The DG also added her voice to the alarm over the increasing rate of tanker fires in various parts of the country.
