Five confirmed dead in Abule-Egba pipeline fire

At least five persons have been confirmed dead in the Abule-Egba pipeline fire explosion that occurred on Sunday night.

“It’s unfortunate we lost 5 lives to this inferno, with many in critical condition in the hospitals,” Mele Kolo Kyari, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation boss, said during his visit to the scene of the explosion on Monday.

Kyari noted that the explosion was as a result of the “unpatriotic acts of vandals” who make “insertions into the pipelines to steal products, leading to disasters such as this.”

He, therefore, called for the “support of every member of the community to expose the bad eggs in their midst.”

It was not immediately clear what, if any, impact the pipeline fire would have on the operations of the NNPC.

Reports said the fire broke out at Ile-Epo Bus Stop along Abeokuta Expressway, spreading instantly to nearby Abule Egba before another explosion was heard in Fagba and Ekoro Road — all densely populated suburbs north of Lagos but several kilometres apart.

A similar explosion from incident killed over 700 people in December 2006 in Abule Egba. Another explosion occurred in December 2018 in the same neighbourhood, but with fewer casualties.