When ‘two elephants’ wreaked havoc on Niger community

Most travellers passing through Niger state from the southern part of the country may not even notice Kudu, a sleepy rural community in the state in the course of their journey, but the little semblance of development and commercial activities in the village was ruined when two fuel tankers had a head-on collision causing extensive damage.

Kudu, situated along Bida-Mokwa highways, in Mokwa local government of Niger State, was engulfed in flames following the fire incident involving a petrol tanker containing about 44,000 petrol Liters of fuel while traveling from Lagos axis of the road to go and discharge at a filling station in Minna and another petrol tanker from Bida axis of the road, believed to be owned by Oando Oil.

Sunday Tribune gathered that the Oando petrol tanker was said to have successfully discharged the petroleum product it was carrying and was returning to the Southern part of the country when the accident occurred.

It was further learnt that two lives were lost in the accident and the victims included a five-month-old Fatima Aliyu Kudu; a 10-year-old girl, Shamsiya Mohammed Chiji.

Sunday Tribune investigations revealed further that properties estimated at several millions of naira among which were 75 residential apartments were completely razed. Twenty-two commercial outlets such as locked -up shops at Kudu Business centres containing various articles of trade including storage facilities were also completely burnt down.

In an interview with Sunday Tribune in Minna, the Director-General, Niger State Emergency Management Agency, Malam Ahmed Ibrahim Inga, confirmed the incident adding that the agency had also visited the scene and took inventories of the victims, injured survivors and badly damaged properties involved in the fire incident.

According to the NSEMA boss, one Nissan Pick-Up Vehicle was also damaged when the fire incident lasted in addition to a concrete electric pole that was broken by one of the petrol tankers involved in the accident.

Inga, stated further that aluminium conductor electrical cables of two span on a 33 kva line were also damaged during the incident.