Nigerian Official Wants Fire Probe
The governor of Lagos called on Friday for a judicial inquiry into a fuel pipeline fire in which more than 60 were burned alive near Nigeria's commercial capital.
Governor Bola Tinubu visited the site of the disaster and implicitly blamed state-run Nigerian National Petroleum Corp (NNPC), owners of the pipeline and Nigeria's biggest depot for imported oil products nearby.
Tinubu demanded compensation for the victims, mostly fishermen and villagers, saying NNPC's products subsidiary, PPMC, had been negligent in ignoring a month-old leak in the pipeline. Petrol gushing from the pipe had triggered the inferno.
"It (the fire) was due to PPMC negligence, the victims should be paid immediate compensation," Tinubu told reporters.
The fire also destroyed shacks in nearby squatter camps at Atlas Cove near the Lagos port of Apapa. Fire crews were still battling to extinguish the blaze, although they have succeeded in containing it.
The gutted fishing village of Ebute-Oko lies across a lagoon from the central business district of Lagos.
The village was almost deserted on Friday. Local people said the pipeline had been leaking for nearly two months.
Many of the dead were fishermen incinerated in their dugout canoes as flames spread rapidly along the line of the fuel leak.
Nigeria, Africa's biggest oil exporter, has been plagued by oil fires that have killed hundreds of people over the past two years. The last blaze was in July, when more than 200 villagers scavenging fuel from a pipeline died when the fuel exploded.
NNPC blames the disasters on thieves who puncture pipelines criss-crossing the country to tap petrol for sale on the thriving black market.
"It is vandals that caused the fire," PPMC's Managing Director Dan Nzelu told reporters on Friday. He said repairs of the leaking pipe were delayed because of stiff resistance by vandals.
NNPC stopped pumping oil products from the nearby Atlas Cove jetty, a key port for Nigeria's gasoline imports.
"There are enough stocks at depots to last two weeks," NNPC spokesman Ndu Ughamadu said. "But notwithstanding we want to ensure that pumping resumes very soon from Atlas Cove."
Ughamadu said NNPC had brought in construction firm Julius Berger to help extinguish the fire.
Company spokesman Ndu Ughamadu said the number killed may never be known because relatives were collecting bodies to avoid prosecution.
"Our men have been given marching orders to repair (the pipeline) once the fire is put out," he added.
Nigeria, the world's sixth largest oil-producer, is already gripped by a fuel shortage which can only get worse because of this blaze just before the peak Christmas period.
Fuel scarcity has been a regular feature of Nigerian life for years because of neglect of the country's four refineries under military rule. The NNPC is forced to import large quantities of oil products.
The practice of "scooping, the name for the process of vandalizing and gathering fuel from pipelines, is common among impoverished Nigerians despite the risk of fire or harsh punishment.
Some government critics have accused corrupt officials of turning a blind eye to the practice in return for a share of the profits from fuel sales.