The Senate yesterday called on the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), and security agencies to live up to their responsibility of securing oil pipelines against the nefarious activities of “die-hard vandals.”
The upper legislative chamber, which expressed shock over the pipeline fire disaster that claimed several hundreds of lives on Tuesday morning at Abule Egba area of Lagos State, said it was worried that the incident had become regular since a similar disaster in Jesse, Delta State, in 2000, which claimed over 1,000 lives.
In a separate statement, the Senate President, Ken Nnamani, also lamented the pipeline fire which he said had turned the joy of Christmas and Eid-el-Kabir celebrations into �ashes in the mouths of Nigerians.�
The statement by the Senate, which was issued by Chairman of the Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba, SAN, reads: “the Senate is worried by this seemingly interminable line of preventable pipeline disasters . The time has come for the NNPC and security agencies to live up to their responsibilities of securing the pipelines against die-hard vandals, their excuses are no longer music in anyone�s ears and no further excuses will be entertained while thousands of lives are lost due to negligence.
“While we do not in any way encourage pipeline vandalisation or any other form of criminality, it must, however, be said that those on whose shoulders it is to secure these oil facilities must live up to their responsibilities.”
He said he was shocked and devastated by the scale of destruction of lives and property in the fire, adding that “we call on the Federal Government, especially the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), and other humanitarian agencies to as a matter of urgency, send relief materials to victims of the inferno, especially those recuperating in hospitals, to serve as succuor in their hour of need.”
In the statement by his Special Adviser (Public Communi-cation), Mr Augsten Adamu, Nnamani said “God, in His infinite wisdom, has purposed Christians and Muslims who are the predominant religious groups in Nigeria to use this season to strengthen existing bonds of friendship in an atmosphere of peace by celebrating the important feasts of Christmas and Eid-el-Kabir in the same week.�
Dec292006