Youths of Osisioma Ngwa yesterday blocked the Enugu- Port Harcourt Highway with corpses of some of the people who died in the pipeline explosion. It was learnt that the protest, aside the pipeline explosion, was triggered by a radio comment credited to the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Aba Depot Manager, Mr. Joseph Dumaka, that the explosion was caused by vandalism by the indigenous people of Osisioma Ngwa. In reaction to Dumaka’s alleged comment, coupled with the death rate which has risen to over 100, Osisioma Ngwa Youth Congress staged a bizarre protest where they paraded caskets containing bodies of those burnt to death in the explosion. The youths carried placards with different inscriptions such as:
“Enough of these deaths caused by the carelessness of NNPC,” “NNPC wants to kill us all,” “The explosion was not as a result of vandalism,” “We have been made homeless and orphans by NNPC,” etc. With a heavy police presence at the NNPC Depot, the youth sang angry songs for more than three hours, asking the depot manager to come out and explain what he meant by vandalism being the cause of the explosion. Speaking during the protest, President, Osisioma Ngwa Youth Congress, Mr. Emma Nduagu, said: “What happened is not any form of vandalism.
“It is a serious act of carelessness on the part of NNPC. It’s so much painful to hear the depot manager go on air to accuse us of vandalism.
After several hours of waiting for Dumaka, the infuriated youths dropped a casket containing the corpse of one of them and broke eggs at the NNPC entrance gates in Osisioma.
Calming tension down at the protest scene, the Chairman of Osisioma Local Government Area, Benjamin Mgbeahuru, said it was unacceptable for NNPC to stigmatise the youth of Osisioma Ngwa as vandals when on several occasions the corporation’s officials had been invited to repair the abandoned pipeline and they failed to appear. Mgbahuru spoke through his Chief of Staff, Nwagbara Chimdirim Godpower.
He said: “Our people have died in a very disastrous way. We must not take laws into our hands no matter what, but I must state it clearly that we are very angry to hear how the depot management lied that the cause of the explosion is as a result of vandals’ activities.
“We want to say it that it is an act of carelessness on the part of Pipelines and Product Marketing Company limited, (PPMC). We have invited them several times, but they refused. Humans are very hard to control and there is no way such leakages will happen in this time of hardship and you control everybody.
“Please, I beg you to take back the casket and we assure you that justice must be done.”
At the intensive unit of the Abia State University Teaching Hospital, Aba (ABSUTH), most of the victims were in critical condition and couldn’t speak.
