There have been deaths resulting from gas explosions which are avoidable.
However, with gas plants springing up in residential areas, it becomes a challenge to control the damage such action can cause; BENJAMIN UMUTEME reports.
In May 2015, top Nigerian table tennis player, Seun Ajetunmobi, died after sustaining injuries from a gas explosion.
In Kaduna, 14 shops and a pharmacy, including one person, sustained injuries from an explosion from a shop that sells gas cylinders.
In August 2017, four persons were killed and many injured at Obosi in Idemili North local government area of Anambra state following a cooking gas explosion at Trinity Gas Limited station.
Last year, in Lagos, an explosion at a gas station claimed the life of two people.
That same day, five people also lost their lives after an oxygen gas trans-load went awry in a retail shop in Agara, Badagry.
In February, 2018, a gas explosion in Zuba, Gwagwalada area council, Abuja, left three persons dead and others with degrees of injuries.
It was gathered that those who died in the unfortunate incident were the gas attendants and the customer.
According to witnesses, the incident occurred when a boy, an apprentice of a welder brought their cylinder to refill.
There have been other cases in Warri, Delta state, Osogbo, Osun state, and Owerri in Imo state.
The issue of safety in the Liquefied Petroleum Gas subsector is increasing becoming a safety concern as industry stakeholders continue to express concerns over existing safety gaps as the drive to boost cooking gas consumption gains momentum.
A closer look at most explosions will reveal a troubling combination of poor safety procedures, below-par response measures and public ignorance which invariably boils down to system failures that could have been avoided if tighter regulations had been in place.
For instance, Nipco has a gas plant situated in Jabi, area of Abuja, and it is within a residential area.
Also in Jikwoyi, a suburb of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), two gas stations are also located within residential area.
Residents have been asking whether operators of the plant had the approval of the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) to site the business there.
In spite of several appeal to the government to address this trend, nothing seems be happening.
According to Yahaya Musa, who resides close to one of the plants in Jikwoyi, he shudders whenever he remembers that he stays close to a gas plant.
While he consoles himself that God is the ultimate protector, he is still apprehensive that any incident at the plant will put his life and that of his entire family in grave danger.
“I am yet to understand why a gas station that is highly inflammable can be sited in areas where people reside,” he said.
Many times some of these stations are sited without the approval of either the town planning office or the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) which regulates domestic gas transactions.
Safety rules Like everything other business in Nigeria, the business has become an all comers affair that can be started even in homes and open streets without due regard for public safety and by people who know next to nothing about gas or the havoc it is capable of causing if not properly handled.
Some cylinders used to store the substance are generally known to be highly inflammable look so rusty that a little pressure is all that is needed to cause an explosion.
That the explosions are becoming rampant should be enough to spur the authorities into action.
They should start with the location of the plants themselves.
This is a pointer to the fact that proper environmental impact assessment was not carried out to establish the suitability of the business in that location.
In the Ikosi incident, the odour of leaking gas was perceived the previous day, but had been allowed to saturate the environment completely that even the presence of the Fire Service could not prevent the disaster.
Also, the shop involved in the Badagry catastrophe was packed full of cylinders without ventilation.
It is alleged that a damaged cylinder head released the gas which eventually caused the explosion.
While one cannot rule out accidents or incidents in any business concern, it is obvious that in many of the cases gas explosion, prevention and safety measures were apparently very slack and created situations that were the prelude to many of these disasters.
Prevention In an ideal situation, regulations guiding various activities relating to the safety of installations and appliances using natural and liquefied petroleum gas cover various aspects of supply and use of gas, and qualifications and duties of people involved with doing so.
Provisions of the regulations with which the public is most familiar are: the duties of landlords to ensure the safety of gas installations and appliances in a rented accommodation, attested by a Landlord’s Gas Safety Certificate which must be obtained at least annually and a copy given to tenants.
Whether this is observed in the country is a different matter entirely.
Experts have repeatedly questioned the capacity of those that work in a gas station.
This presupposes that whoever will engage in the dispensation of gas must have passed through some form of training that will enable them understand the basic rules of the business.
For Isaac Chimezie, who works with one of the gas stations in Jikwoyi, he was given a hands-on training when he joined the company three years ago, but whether the one-off training is enough or not is a different matter entirely.
This is what international best practices demand and make it imperative that safety standards must apply to everyone who installs, alters, maintains or operates gas technologies.
All licensed contractors are required to be up to date with changes in the laws and regulations guiding operations in the business.
Enforcing regulations Given the regularity of these disasters in the country, the authorities need to increase how it regulates the business and reduce chances of accidents occurring.
At the moment, it appears that gas business in the country is not sufficiently regulated as it were by the DPR.
Mr.
Chux Ukwuato lives at Abacha road in Mararaba area of Nasarawa state.
In a chat with Blueprint Weekend, he insisted that establishment and management of a gas station should be very strict especially when it is located in a residential area due to the danger it poses to residents in the area.
“I believe the focus of the government should be on safety.
Gas stations should not be located in residential areas.
“There is one in my area that residents continue to question why it was established in that area.
If there is a fire outbreak, the loss of lives and properties will be massive.
We are talking of billions of naira because of where they are located.
Government should be proactive when it comes to this,” he said.
Also, the Executive Secretary, Nigerian Association of Liquefied Petroleum Gas Marketers, Mr.
Bassey Essien, stressed on the need for LPG sector operators to be safety consciousness.
Questions persist Eyebrows have been raised over the quality of equipment and accessories in the system.
Moreover, the proliferation of cooking gas retail outlets in the country has made it difficult for effective supervision and enforcement by DPR.
Experts believe that most times, gas plant fire incidents were as a result of poor management attitude or lack of corrective measures.
At the November 2017 Annual General Meeting of the DPR’s Lagos zonal office, the Controller, Lagos Zonal Operations, Mr.
Wole Akinyosoye, highlighted the growth in the downstream gas market, with more gas plants, gas skids and gas retail outlets.
According to him, in Lagos alone, depot LPG storage capacity increased from 6,000 metric tonnes in 2014 to 30,000 metric tonnes in 2017, with more capacity expansion underway.
He, however, noted that the exponential activities in the LPG market have come with growing challenges, especially on safety.
The way out If Nigeria is to move beyond the cycle of needless loss of lives and properties caused by gas explosions, safety regulations must be enforced much more strictly than they are at the moment.
A comprehensive survey of all gasdispensing installations, stations and shops in the country must be carried out without delay, and those that are found to have breached established safety requirements should be closed down until they meet the standards.
The siting of gas businesses in denselypopulated areas must be discouraged; in this regard, the town-planning edicts which are supposed to manage such issues must be strictly enforced.
Where disaster occurs as a result of proven negligence, the culprits concerned must be sanctioned to the fullest extent of the law.
Gas has become indispensable in Nigeria.
However, with more citizens transiting away from wood and charcoal, it is vital that its dangers are reduced to the barest minimum.
