Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola (SAN) has regretted the loss of over 15 lives in Tuesday’s tanker explosion in Apapa area of the state.
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Fashola spoke to journalists after inspecting ongoing projects in Ikorodu on Thursday. Describing the incident as devastating, Fashola noted that the era of moving PMS by road has gone. He stressed that Nigeria was one of the few oil producing countries still transporting fuel with trucks through metropolitan cities, berating the Federal Government for not living up to its responsibility of making the rail transportation system work.
“Everyone must take his own share of the responsibility on this issue. First, the federal government. There isn’t a rocket science about restoring the old rail tracks. If the rail is working as they say, then we should begin to use it to transport our petroleum products rather than use the road. It will save the roads and fuel,” the governor said.
He said the incident coming just few months after the revelation of mismanagement of funds in the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation raises serious questions on how the federal government appropriated the funds. He said,
“When one looks at the waste in NNPC. Now we were talking about $45 billion that was missing.They seem to be quite satisfied to tell us that it was only $10 billion that was missing. This is a lot of money. One dollar of public money is a lot of money. But later they told us that they spent the money actually.
“Now serious questions must be asked by the National Assembly, chartered accountants and Nigerians about who appropriated the money. Was it spent during the period that the CBN governor said that they didn’t account for the money or was it before? And if there was appropriation for it, then we can now begin to seriously talk that were they the right places to spend the money?
“Given that if we had spent $10 billion to try and use it to build rails for evacuation of fuel from Apapa and Tin Can Island, maybe those people wouldn’t have died. They are serious questions. First was that the priority? Were those the things to spend them on assuming there was appropriation? They are serious questions that we all must ask at this moment.”
Fashola spoke to journalists after inspecting ongoing projects in Ikorodu on Thursday. Describing the incident as devastating, Fashola noted that the era of moving PMS by road has gone. He stressed that Nigeria was one of the few oil producing countries still transporting fuel with trucks through metropolitan cities, berating the Federal Government for not living up to its responsibility of making the rail transportation system work.
“Everyone must take his own share of the responsibility on this issue. First, the federal government. There isn’t a rocket science about restoring the old rail tracks. If the rail is working as they say, then we should begin to use it to transport our petroleum products rather than use the road. It will save the roads and fuel,” the governor said.
He said the incident coming just few months after the revelation of mismanagement of funds in the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation raises serious questions on how the federal government appropriated the funds. He said,
“When one looks at the waste in NNPC. Now we were talking about $45 billion that was missing.They seem to be quite satisfied to tell us that it was only $10 billion that was missing. This is a lot of money. One dollar of public money is a lot of money. But later they told us that they spent the money actually.
“Now serious questions must be asked by the National Assembly, chartered accountants and Nigerians about who appropriated the money. Was it spent during the period that the CBN governor said that they didn’t account for the money or was it before? And if there was appropriation for it, then we can now begin to seriously talk that were they the right places to spend the money?
“Given that if we had spent $10 billion to try and use it to build rails for evacuation of fuel from Apapa and Tin Can Island, maybe those people wouldn’t have died. They are serious questions. First was that the priority? Were those the things to spend them on assuming there was appropriation? They are serious questions that we all must ask at this moment.”
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