Filling stations in residential areas

THERE has been a trend from around the late 1990s till date in Nigeria: the emergence of filling stations and gas stations within residential areas. Before then, you could only find filling stations on major roads. There is no gainsaying that petroleum products ranging from premium motor spirit (PMS), popularly called petrol, to gas to diesel are highly inflammable. This explains why their locations should be taken into consideration so they won’t pose any threat to people around. From Molete to Oke Bola in Ibadan, Oyo State, you can count as many as 20 filling stations even on the main road. That shows the extent to which many are going into the business of oil and gas in recent times. Taking a walk around some residential areas within major cities like Ibadan, Osogbo and Lagos, you see filling stations few metres away from one another. Some are between houses while some have few houses away from where they were situated.

Sometimes ago, a Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) filling station on Yaya Abatan Street in Ogba, Lagos, caught fire. The fire was said to have emanated from a diesel-laden tanker that was about to discharge its contents into the station’s underground storage tank. Also, on March 21, 2019, shops, cars, motorbikes and goods worth millions of naira were destroyed in an explosion from a local gas station around Aguda, Surulere, also in Lagos State. It was reported that a bungalow and a mosque were partially affected while a mechanic workshop was badly burnt down. Residents said they actually kicked against the gas station being built therein to no avail as the owner did not heed but went ahead and built it according to news reports. The rate at which fuel and gas stations is sprouting in major cities in Nigeria, especially in Lagos and Ibadan, should be of major concern to all and sundry at this time. The consequences of this on the environment, the health of citizens and lives generally should be a source of worry.

The trucks that carry these products are usually long and very heavy when loaded or when not. When offloading the product, the truck needs enough space. Most roads within the residential vicinities are not wide enough to accommodate the sizes of these trucks. It is not out of place to see drainages destroyed from time to time while they are trying to offload or leave the stations. This shows that the transportation, offloading and how these products are stored should also be a source of worry as these are highly inflammable products.

The strange aspect is the nonchalant attitude of those saddled with issuing permit before the edifice meant for a filling station is put in place. There is no way work can start without getting approval from necessary authorities. This makes one to wonder if lives are important to those in this regard before allowing such. At least, the rule is that fuel stations must be at least 400 metres away from one another. But we can see how filling stations are closely sitted all over the country. One then begins to wonder who approved the building of these filling stations, especially in residential areas within highly populated areas. The Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) Procedure Guideline (2010), under the Petroleum Act, CAP 150 of 1967, states: “The implications for flouting the DPR guidelines by petrol stations range from classifying that the petrol station as illegal to revocation of licence, depending on the gravity of the offence.” Is this guideline no longer effective? Is the rule about distances that should be observed between fuel stations and residential houses no longer viable too? Can we say that the owners of these stations are bribing their way out and are allowed to put the lives and properties of the Nigerian people at stake without fear of being sanctioned? Are they above the law? It seems the regulatory authorities are lackadaisical about this issue and aren’t bothered about the loss of lives and properties accruing form the infernos that result from a burning fuel station. If they are, we should have stopped seeing them spring from almost everywhere and we should have read about two or three that were sanctioned due to the constructions of these stations illegally.

And why is the government looking the other way? Does it mean the government is more concerned about the economic importance than the lives of the people? It should not be a subject of debate that the health of the people and their lives are at stake if filling stations and gas stations are not monitored. The government should make sure the guidelines and rules are strictly adhered to not minding who is involved. With the way filling stations are sprouting from every nook and cranny, one cannot but wonder if it is the only business in town. It is very wrong to approve a filling station or a gas station within residential areas. It is high time the government and those in the authorities began to revoke the licences of the guilty stations and make it a law that such should stop. Any government official who gave out such licence should be brought to book and charged to court. The 400-metre rule should be enforced to curb the building of filling stations too closely to one another even on major roads.

All illegal structures should be demolished. The locations of these stations should be checked properly to avoid disaster. The government should be fully involved in this to avert loss of lives and properties that this can cause if left unchecked. Money should not be placed above the lives and properties of the Nigerian people. In the advanced countries, this is not a subject of debate at all. Lives should not be toyed with. The DPR should stop giving undue waivers.