The Nigerian Fuel Tanker Tragedy That Keeps On Giving

In the last ten years or so, at least three ghastly accidents involving tankers and petrol have happened in Nigeria. In each of the cases, the tragedy has been augmented by the fact that people have gathered at the accident site, attempting to scoop petrol from the fallen tanker. The first time I heard of this kind of tragedy was in the late 1990s. Perhaps many others had happened before. Now, the first time I heard of the tragedy I thought that one of the lessons that may be taken from it is that people should not go scooping petrol from fallen tankers because the whole thing might ignite. In the first case, over a hundred people died. Not long after that, it happened again, with the same costly price in human life. The latest one was just last week. It would seem that such constant mishap in which so many lives are lost will be taken as a national emergency. Perhaps the Nigerian government may want to sensitize people about the dangers of scooping fuel from a fallen tanker. Perhaps, again, people keep falling for the same mistake because their desperate conditions always make the risk attractive. Consider the many Africans who keep drowning in the Mediterranean Sea as they try to cross to Europe. However, something needs to be done to sensitize and empower people so that they do not expose themselves to such risk. Where people generally have the means to make decent livelihood, they generally do not place themselves in position of such dangerous risk. I will, however, not be surprised if an intelligent preacher in Nigeria is attributing the whole thing to witchcraft. That is how they, too, make their money.