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| Ibadan Fire |
Victims of Monday’s tanker fire in Omitowoju, Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, yesterday attacked a tanker driver, who drove into the area.
They threatened to set the driver ablaze, if he failed to make a detour.
Residents, in their hundreds, joined the victims and barricaded the street, preventing any articulated vehicle laden with fuel from going through the road.
The victims seized the driver and asked him to produce the driver of the tanker that caused Monday’s fire.
It took the intervention of the community elders before the driver was released, after a stern warning never to ply the road again.
The Mogaji of Atere Compound, where three storey buildings were completely burnt, Alhaji Bello Atere Olatubosun (92), said the victims have started searching for the owner of the tanker to find out if the truck was insured and work out modalities for possible compensation.
He said four of the houses burnt in the fire belonged to members of his family and lamented that nobody from the oil dealers or insurance companies has come to sympathise with the victims.
When The Nation visited the area, members of charity organisations and a few Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) were distributing clothes, shoes, and household items to the victims.
One of the victims, Mr. Johnson Oladejo, a retired civil servant, said the only thing he had left were the clothes he was wearing.
Raising the trouser and shirt given to him by one of the NGOs, Oladejo said: “This is all I have in this world. My shop, house and every other thing were consumed by the fire. Please tell Nigerians to help us. We want to know the owner of the tanker that brought this sorrow on us. Yesterday (Wednesday), we learnt that members of NUPENG visited the Mokola Divisional Police Officer (DPO), who is in charge of this area, and we know the driver that drove the tanker is with him. So, there is no way the insurance company and the owner of the tanker will not be produced. It is only a matter of time.”
Over 1,200 people were rendered homeless by the fire.
Source: The Nation
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