The Ladipo, Mushin, Lagos gas explosion of November 16 was another poster-view of routine Nigerian disasters. Unfortunately, that doesn’t preclude future disasters — not with unchanging habits and fixed mindsets; not with markets rocking under thumping daily patrons.
“It’s completely avoidable, human negligence led to it. From what I have seen there and from what I have heard,” Hakeem Odumosu, the Lagos State Commissioner of Police told Premium Times at the scene, “the thing blew off. Someone was trying to refill the gas cylinder as well as making a call.”
Ibrahim Farinloye, South West Coordinator of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), added his own bit: one female and three male bodies were recovered from the blast. Another, a 10-year-old, was evacuated alive and in pains; but died while being rushed to the hospital.
The Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA) said the Ojekunle Street, Ladipo, Mushin scene of the blast was an “open land with shanties and shops where cylinders are stacked.” That was reflex suicidal market folk instinct, hugging loose and lax regulation by town planning authorities.
The tragic effect of all that was clear from the testimony of a witness, who Premium Times simply called Lekan: “I was at home around 8 am, when I heard the explosion, the second street to this place. We thought it was the power line. A body part, a hand, flew into our street. Also when I got here, I started seeing different body parts on the floor” — gory!
But Lekan wasn’t done: “I saw one of the affected persons. He said three of his friends were dead” — tragic!
To think all of this was avoidable, with better general safety instincts; and with far stricter regulations, from basic local government look-ins, to stringent regulations by the Lagos State urban planning authorities! And to think that with far less procedural corruption, such an accident-waiting-to-happen could have been dismantled!
Every death is regrettable — even of those whose recklessness caused the inferno; including the doomed soul that allegedly tinkered with explosive gas, while fumbling with his cellphone to make or take a call.
But the actual victims were the passers-by: innocent pedestrians, commercial bikers and sundry motorists who ran into the blast and got bruised — or worse. We sympathise with these victims and their families; and wish those undergoing treatment in hospital fast recovery; and total wellness from the trauma.
Still, it is for the sake of the innocent, who go about their legitimate daily bread, but more often than not become disaster victims, that the government must be more proactive; and ruthlessly hit at those whose reckless acts put others at avoidable risk.
For starters, that that compound of all sorts — eateries, mechanic shacks, gas dumps, and allied bric-a-brac — was there for so long, with little or no government survey and reprimand from state authorities, is simply not good enough.
Involved segments of Lagos State, from the immediate Mushin Local Government to state-wide urban and town planning authorities must, therefore, own up to their share of the blame and make this Ladipo blast a turning point: it must never happen again.
Averting disasters is no magic wand. It is simply strengthening the enforcement of regulations. That did not seem to have happened, as there were even tales of part of that compound being at a point shut down.
The usual questions: who unsealed it in spite of that order? Was it rogue unsealing or legitimate re-opening? All these must be vigorously investigated, if not to hand out penalty for wrongdoings — and why not? — but to re-impose the primacy of enforcing safety regulations.
Still, regulations should start with re-designing our market places to create enough spacing, to accommodate the thumping humanity that daily do business there. Space standards must be clinically enforced. If that is followed with adequate safety education and even stricter enforcement of safety protocols, accidents might still not be totally eliminated. But chances are disasters would be far less.
The Lagos State government, in company with corresponding local governments, should also use the Ladipo blast to crack down on market folks who now turn roads and road medians, in their immediate vicinity, into refuse dumps.
A drive through the Iyana Itire-Ilasamaja-Hassan section of the concrete and new Oshodi-Isolo expressway reveals a surfeit of such reckless behaviour, with the service lanes virtually groaning under refuse dumps.
That is another environmental disaster that must be curbed before it happens. Market folks must be made to take responsibility for the environment, from which they eke their daily bread.
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