Following series of tanker explosions that have occurred recently in Lagos, the Petroleum Tanker Drivers (PTD) branch of the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) has cried out to the government to intervene so as to stem the tide of tanker explosions which often lead to loss of lives and property.
Exonerating its members from any fault, the union said last week that contrary to widely held opinions, most of the explosions that have taken place over the last month in Lagos are not only because of the tanker drivers, but also government forces and even as a result of negligence on the part of other motorists
One of the recent explosions occurred along the Lagos-Ibadan expressway where more than 40 lives were reported to have been lost. According to eye witnesses, the explosion was caused by the police check point on the highway.
But speaking with Shipping Position Weekly correspondent last week in Lagos, the assistant zonal secretary of the PTD branch of NUPENG Mr. Tayo Aboyeji explained that there is need for the government to look into the plight of tanker drivers in order to know and address the challenges that are being faced on the high way.
Aboyeji said that apart from the fact that most of the highways are currently riddled with port holes, there is a large increase in the number of petroleum tankers currently doing business in Lagos state.
He explained that this is as a result of the fact that majority of the fuel importation business that sustains the whole country are still being transacted in Lagos and that in all this “nobody has ever come up to ask what the drivers are facing on the roads, but people are always quick to apportion blames”.
Rising in a very strong defence of his members, the union leader said “explosions are not the faults of the tanker drivers alone, nobody wants to lose his life and this is where we get our daily bread, commercial and private vehicles also share in the blame, you see many of them will be dragging lanes with the oil tanker, we all need to be re-orientated and not just tanker drivers alone”.
He however clamoured for the need for the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) in conjunction with other relevant agencies to come together and organize a stakeholders’ workshop to sensitize drivers; especially tanker drivers on how to abide by safety rules while driving on the highway.
“There should also be an avenue where the tanker drivers will be allowed to come up and voice out their challenges and by so doing corrective measures will be taken to reduce the deaths”.
“The major roads we are plying have deteriorated completely, check for example the Apapa road and the access road along the area, it has been like that for a very long time without solution, we have cried out severally and nothing is done”, he lamented.
Another issue that have been generating concern is the sudden return of tankers along the ever-busy Apapa expressway which has also resulted in the return of heavy vehicular traffic.
Shipping Position Weekly recalls that a directive had been issued about two years ago by the Lagos state government that all tank farms should acquire parking bays where the trucks are to remain, but reports have however confirmed that the truck parks may not to be working any more.
Aboyeji however confirmed this development, saying that “at the moment we are still looking for parking spaces, when you get to the truck park in Orile and the rest of the parks, it is filled up and there are no more spaces for trucks, this is why you see the tankers parking along the road side”.
“The truck park at Ibafo is also filled up and this is one of the contributing factors that lead to the last accident along the Lagos Ibadan expressway, there are no spaces for us to park and government is not encouraging us, we pay lots of money to the Ogun state government in order to use the truck park at Ibafo” he said.
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