Editor’s note: The scale of destruction from the gas explosion at the Chikason Group plant in Nnewi, which not only damaged property, but cost lives, could have been much smaller had adequate safety mechanisms been put in place beforehand. In this week’s column for Naij.com, Ebuka Onyekwelu calls upon Nigerians to start being less indifferent to issues concerning their own safety.
The absurd ordeal in Nnewi, an industrial hub in Anambra state, where people were plainly roasted in the fire outbreak at the Chikason gas plant on the 24th December 2015, is exhaustively heartbreaking. It was like a deployment of lesser weapon of mass destruction in a target area. The destruction was complete and utterly lethal. The pictures from there should be enough to convince anyone that the incidence was an extreme devastation.
I am familiar with the area in question. It is not a place with high population density. The location of the plant qualifies as a mild outskirts of the town. The plant itself is located a few meters away from the new Nnewi-Onitsha road, just before the popular traffic light junction coming from Igwe’s Palace, and after the traffic light junction coming from the other side, with a few houses around, including a Redeemed Christian church building just behind the plant. The main Chikason Industries building is located farther behind the gas plant. Behind the gas plant lies what is rightly an industrial layout, where extremely flammable petroleum products and other petrochemicals are extensively utilized and produced.
The point here is that, irrespective of the destructive sad event, something worse could have happened. Chikason Industries is perhaps the highest private employer of labour in conceivably throughout Anambra state and likely beyond, with thousands of workers engaged directly and indirectly. So the location hosts high level of activities which translates to remarkably high movement of people and goods.
In addition to the Chikason Industries buildings, the Nnewi North Local Government Council Headquarters building is also somewhere nearby. The central police station is located there, as well as the Cutix Cable Industry, the first non-Lagos based Nigerian company to be listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange.
Had the fire outbreak been more tremendous and outrageous, to the point of advancing just a bit further behind, Nnewi would literally be up in flames. This is better imagined and best ends just as a figment of imagination. In actual fact, fire outbreak is one of the most dangerous and precarious forms of disaster. Fire destroys completely and without limits.
What can we possibly learn from that event?
The lessons
To leave disaster prevention or management to chance, fate or faith at an area with such a high concentration of economic activities is exceedingly disquieting. How could such a modern gas plant not have a standby fire service? How can there not be a robust provision for fire outbreak management in an industry that deals with highly flammable substance and products?
You see, there is something wrong with how most of us live in the middle of danger with the sense of normalcy. It is a common sight across Nigeria to see residential houses surrounded by filling stations, and you wonder what is wrong with us? You see people riding at night without headlamps and you are lost trying to understand how people arrive at taking such unwarranted risk.
The fact is that we have become so careless with our safety that we have embraced death and hope to live. Yet, it is common for us to blame “Satan” or “wicked people” for disasters, and on the other hand, place all duties and responsibilities on “God,” thereby exposing ourselves to all manners of needless dangers. This is a height of disorder!
How could our government not rise to ensuring that this mindless risk is curtailed and non-existent? It is unthinkable that a town like Nnewi with high concentration of industries, especially petrochemical and other highly flammable products, does not have a standard fire service station. So in many ways, the careless attitude towards safety is a general chaos acceptable by Nigerians and their government.
What if took responsibility for our safety by putting appropriate structures in place and imbibing the right attitude for a safer, better prepared environment to handle disasters, instead of being passive and living by chance? The massive inefficiency is profound on both sides. If the gas plant had a fire service provided by the company, the fire would not have been as disastrous. If the main industrial layout had fire service vans, they would have responded promptly thereby effectively limiting the extent of the catastrophe.
The same also goes if Nnewi had an equipped fire service station. Noteworthy is the fact that the fire outbreak in the gas plant lasted for hours before the first fire service, probably coming from Awka, the state capital, arrived. It is a 35, at most 50, minutes drive at most between Awka and Nnewi. So there is another problem of late response by fire service which is unjustifiable by all known logic principles.
The disaster was totally avoidable, or could have been better controlled, had we taken our safety seriously. Tragedy may have not be completely averted, but it could have been checked.
This is a wake-up call to all Nigerians and the government, especially the specific industries, to make safety a topmost priority and never rely on chance in issues of safety. In addition, provision should be made in strategic places for peculiar disaster management in the area. At the onset it may look like waste, but in the long run, it will prove to be far better and handsomely rewarding. We just have to imbibe safety attitude.
Author, Ebuka Onyekwelu
Ebuka Onyekwelu is a political scientist, a public affairs analyst and activist with concerted interest in Africa’s crisis of development and leadership. Follow him on Twitter @ebukaequity.
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