Against the creeping culture of death

By 

Doyin Mahmoud

TWO years after a thousand people were consumed in a "fuel-fetching" enterprise at Jesse in Delta State, the omen is still bad. Some Nigerians have not learnt to seek other green but less hazardous pasture. The latest oil pipeline fire erupted in Lagos five days ago. Fifty persons were reported to have been instantly killed. As at Jesse, the victims of this Lagos disaster were scooping fuel from a large pool of petrol which had spilled from a leaking pipe behind the NNPC Atlas Cove Tank Farm in Tarkwa Bay.

It is not as if this leakage, whether accidental or deliberate, is new. The leakage is said to have been on for quite some time and villagers have helped themselves to the fuel seeping from the pipes. Another disaster waiting to happen, according to an NNPC official is some oil percolation around Satellite Town in Lagos where many residents now converge to fetch fuel. The prognosis is that if an explosion should occur, deaths would be in thousands. The Lagos fire at Ebute-Oko raged for over nine hours destroying a number of huts and log cabins. It gave rise to ancillary fire at Makoko, a shanty town, where many fishermen live in wood cabins constructed on stilts in the lagoon near the University of Lagos. The shanty town fire is traced to the scavenging activities of the fishermen who are alleged to be siphoning fuel from the leaking pipelines and conserving it in jerry cans in their wooden cabins.

Between Jesse and Ebute-Oko tragedies, the nation has reaped many harrowing harvest of deaths from such pipeline explosions resulting from vandalisation or leakages. Many are instantly blasted to death, others become living deaths. In all these cases of explosion, the authorities are caught unaware, rescue effort comes too late, rehabilitation moves are inadequate and the scars of the disaster hang on the faces of both the victims and their abodes interminably. The nauseating aspect of this self-inflicted economic violence is the helplessness in which it envelopes the victims and the government. So exasperated has the government become that it is thinking of meeting these fatal exploits with death penalty. Oil pipeline vandalisation is to attract a capital punishment. Same also for those who tamper with NEPA power lines. Will this deter saboteurs? Armed robbery, in spite of death as its penalty, has been on the rise since the law came into effect in the early 70s. Never mind the argument of capital punishment proponents that an executed armed robber is minus one.

What the NNPC must ponder on today is why it has to wait for the pipeline disaster to happen before it acts on the leakages. What is the point in fiddling until a community is razed in cruel inferno before the NNPC races to the scene? While according priority to prompt maintenance of pipeline leaks, the corporation must step up routine surveillance along pipeline routes to deter vandals.

For the government, there is a greater headache. What is it that makes its citizens dare and defy death by engaging in this fatal enterprise? Increasing explosions due to fuel-scooping from pipe-line ooziness indicate the desperation of those who want to make ends meet in total disregard of the dangers to their own lives. The government must look into ways of providing an atmosphere for gainful means of livelihood for its citizens.

The Lagos tragedy which occurred on the eve of December 1, the last month of the year evokes the usual memory of road carnage in the nation. December is the month in which there is a lot of toing and froing. And the higher the frequency of travels, the greater the chances of road mishap. For the nation, the fear of December has always remained the beginning of wisdom. Ordinarily, it is a month that is anticipated by majority of Nigerians who have been thus conditioned by the Gregorian calendar. It is the time of the year where many urban dwellers remember to visit their roots and re-establish ties with villages of their birth.

Will our roads and habits continue to permit such a happy re-union or return. Recent events forebode such joyful wishes. Not minding earlier road mishaps, we need to recall the most recent accidents in which many precious lives were lost. Among the most harrowing and easily memorable was the Ile-Ife toll-gate disaster in which not less than 150 souls perished within the twinkling of an eye. A fuel tanker had rammed into a long queue of vehicles at the uncompleted toll-gate on the approach to the Obafemi Awolowo University. Probably unaware of traffic build-up at the toll-gate, the tanker driver raced to the scene, lost control of his vehicle, and crashed into some vehicles that were held up by the queue. An explosion occurred. Many vehicles were engulfed and their occupants got burnt beyond recognition. None of the deaths was less pathetic but the fate of an hour-old newly wedded couple was outstandingly shattering

No sooner was this recorded, infact 18 days after, than a Lagos-bound luxury bus from Nnewi ended its journey on a fatal note in Ovia River, some 20 kilometres away from Benin-City. More than 40 persons were killed when the bus plunged headlong into the river on the night of November 23. As usual, many versions were advanced as the cause of the accident. When an elephant dies, knives of various sizes are brandished for the butchering process.

Perhaps one needs to stress that the particular accident spot is notorious for such fatal plunges. Many believed the spot is jinxed. Ghastly accidents occur in the place with predictable frequency. The irony of fatal accidents involving luxury buses ought not to be lost on us. It is an automatic truth that air travel is considered the safest means of transport in the world. Yet in the United States, bus travel is considerably safer than travel by plane. Not so here. In Nigeria, the chances are that those buses that are not victims of road hazards may fall prey to armed robbery attacks. Day in day out the joy of road travel by luxury bus gets diminished by piratical interventions and the dangerous nature of our roads.

In clear illustration of the fact that road carnage is not only a feature of highway travel, a mini-bus in Lagos was parked Into the lagoon from the bridge by an on-coming lorry. That also happened last month.

Now December is here. What will it bring? Islamic adherents who are in a month long dawn-to-dusk fasting will be calling it off by December 25 or 26 with the id-el Fitri festival. That period is the peak of Yuletide for Christians and the season of goodwill. This period ought to be a period of double joy or celebration for the nation. Efforts must be made to ensure a carnage-free time of festivity. Not much perhaps can be done immediately in terms of the bad road that have remained unmended since the coming of this administration. A minister of works and housing exists merely on paper. Its minister, a man who is touted at home as "the leader," does anything but leads on this matter of road construction and rehabilitation. Chief Tony Anenih is perhaps more suited to fixing political matters than functioning as a minister. Perhaps we needn't raise our blood pressure level on this. A man who who could sign away the victory of his own party in 1993 may not differentiate between leading the people and governing his stomach. Until the Federal Government figures out what to do with its unwieldy and clay-footed cabinet, the appeal must go to all road users to do all they can to bring road carnage down.

Some of this is traced to human error of over-speeding, road rage and poor shape of vehicles. If road users employ caution at their own ends, a lot can be done to minimise road carnage from the world figure of half a million in one year. Statistics are erratic in Nigeria, but by rule of thumb, our quota to the world figure is far out of proportion to our population and land mass. Our driving habits remain deplorable. Why for God's sake would anyone choose to drive on the wrong side of the road? We do that here. Where in the world to do they buy the kind of moribund pre-owned vehicles we use here?

With the ceaseless carnage on our roads, deaths by pipeline explosions, we appear a violence-desensitized people. We lack respect for death. Think of the many ways in which we let out blood in this country today. Besides the foregoing, murder of all kinds is on the rise, particularly that of ritual. Urban violence thrives in happenstances that are akin to ethnic cleansing. But death is far from fun. It is ugly and unattractive. We need to return to those higher values that place emphasis on morality and human life.

The writer is a Lagos based commentator on national affairs