Lagos community in danger as scavengers make fires near petrol pipes on pipeline

By Isa Isawade

Aboru community in the Alimosho Local Government Area of Lagos is currently sitting on a keg of gun powder waiting to explode any moment from now.

This is as a result of the dangerous activities of some miscreants in the area who have formed the habit of burning cow skin (ponmo) and refuse along petroleum pipeline on Bashorun Street, immediately after the Cherubim and Seraphim Church at Akinola Oju-Odo by the carnal.

A concerned resident who preferred anonymity told PMNEWS that the dangerous practice began recently when some reckless cow skin dealers and ‘Almajiri’ scavengers located and moved to the area to live in shanties and abandoned buildings.

According to him, shortly after the first set of the strangers started burning their articles in the area marked by government as oil pipeline with little or no challenge from residents around the area or any government agents, they became embolden and swelled in number.

“On daily basis, they burn heavy fires on the pipeline to the panic of everyone around the area.

“The scavengers usually move there in large numbers to burn refuse right on the petrol pipes near the pomon depot.

“Always, you would see thick smoke and fire covering the atmosphere in the area, which is also constituting health hazards to residents around the place,” the eyewitness said.

PMNEWS discovered that some of the iron pipes transferring premium motor spirit (PMS) otherwise known as Petrol are actually not under the earth but on the surface. It’s beside these pipes that the dangerous activities are carried out daily.

All efforts made by residents to stop the activities in the area have been rebuffed by the perpetrators.

This also shows that security surveillance over the oil pipelines across the state is poor otherwise, the ominous activities of these bad elements should have been detected and immediately stamped out.

We are in an era when scavengers cut any iron pipes or rods on sight to sell for survival. If they are not quickly dislodged and any of them succeeds in cutting any of the pipes, with the burn fire activity going on, the explosion it would result to would certainly unleash destruction of life and property in an unimaginable proportion just as it happened in Abule Egba on 26 Dec. 2006 where hundreds of lives were lost.

Therefore, the Lagos State Government should quickly deploy task force in Aboru and dislodge these elements in order to forestall such a tragedy.