Six days after a devastating pipeline explosion led to the death of over 50 persons in KomKom, Oyigbo Local Government Area of Rivers State, the Rivers State government has not condoled with the families of the victims.
The fire which was alleged to have been sparked by bribe-seeking police officers from the Afam Police Station in Oyigbo consumed everything within range.
The pipeline belonged to the Nigerian Petroleum Corporation, whose engineers visited the damaged portion of the ageing pipe to repair a leaking valve on Friday.
They were said to have scheduled to return on Saturday but locals invaded the pipe to scoop leaking fuel, leading to the fire.
However, the locals were left to manually evacuate the dead with no agency of the state government, especially the state emergency management agency on site to help.
The National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA, was also nowhere to be found, leading to stakeholders questioning the rationale behind the complicity of silence.
Apart from the member representing Oyigbo/Tai federal constituency, Chisom Dike, no political leader in the state has deemed it fit to visit the area in order to ascertain the level of damage caused during the inferno.
Residents of Oyigbo who spoke to theportcitynews attributed the silence on the lack of political leadership from the area.
According to them, the area does not have a strong politician who would bring the attention of both the state and the federal government to the carnage that occured at KomKom.
