Chinedum Treasure
Anambra State Commissioner for Petrolatum and Mineral Resources, Barrister Anthony Ifeanya has likened scooping of fuel from a fallen tanker by some greedy Nigerians to committing suicide.
The Commissioner, who was speaking yesterday during press interview in his office at Jerome Udoji Secretariat, Awka, described the behaviour by some questionable individuals in the country as not only unfortunate, but ugly.
Acknowledging that tanker mishaps were not peculiar in Nigeria alone, but in the whole world, Ifeanya recalled that last month there was tanker accident in Niger state where about one hundred lives were loss to the tanker explosion.
“The people who go to scoop fuel whenever a tanker falls along the road, discharging its contents, maybe fuel or gass, are not doing the best thing.
“It happened again in Enugu State about last two weeks and even in Anambra State at Army Barracks, and people were rushing to the scene of the incident with their jericans and buckets to scoop fuel,” he narrated.
He reminded the people that fuel is highly inflammable that once it catches fire everybody or things around the vicinity will be burnt to ashes or beyond recognition, stressing that he strongly believed that the questionable individuals know about it, yet they deliberately put their lives on line because of money.
“What is more important than your life?” he asked.
“Once the tanker falls and starts discharging its contents, what a reasonable person should do was to run away as fast as his legs could carry him from the scene of the incident to avoid being engulfed by the inferno.
“How much can you get there that is more than your life? As a Commissioner for Petrolatum and Mineral Resources, Anambra State, may I use this opportunity to warn our people not to play with their lives because, it is just like committing a suicide”, the Commissioner warned.
He noted that anything dangerous can happen on the spot of tanker accident as the people hustle to scoop the fuel, especially when there is a naked fire around, adding that he believed totally that there is poverty and hunger on ground, but one should not throw his life away because of that.
“That is just like committing a suicide because your are hunger, no”, Barrister Ifeanya said.
He advocated enactment of law or establishnent of enforcement team by the government at all levels in the country to prohibit the tanker drivers from plying the roads during the day times, but at night when there will be lesser traffic on the roads for safety of lives and property.
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