The House of Representatives has resolved to visit Lagos and meet with all relevant stakeholders to make adequate arrangements for the relocation of Tank Farms in residential areas in former Nigeria’s capital.
Chairman, House Ad-hoc Committee on the need to relocate Tank Farms in Residential Areas of Ijegun, Kirikiri and Others, Sergius Ogun said this Wednesday during investigative hearing in Abuja.
Ogun noted that Fire Department has been sent to those areas and an Audit Team to monitor the environment and bring a report back to the Committee for further legislative action and to know how to mitigate any fire or disaster.
“Why we are doing all this is to ensure that lives are safe; that people are living in peace and in good health. Houses don’t fall from heaven. By the virtue of the Land Use Act, every land in Lagos belongs to the Lagos State Government, granted it was the federal capital.
“The tank farm owners got approvals and you people who are residents, the Town Planning (Authority) also approved your houses that are there. The tank farm owners pay tax, not to a spirit but to the government. But we cannot shave the head of Lagos State Government with its absence.
“I want you to be assured today that we are working for the interest of you the community and the tank farm owners, and the NNPC that said last week that 85 per cent of the products we use in this country comes from that axis. If anything happened to the place today, there will be scarcity. But that will not be at the expense of the community living there”, he stated.
In their presentation, residents of Ijegun town in Lagos demanded urgent relocation of the petroleum tank farms in the area as it posed grave danger to lives and properties of residents.
Chairman of Ijegun Satellite Town Forum, Michael Imitimi said place had been a residential area since 1976 and it was earmarked and gazetted in 1975 and temporarily occupation license was given which allowed people, largely civil servants to build for residence.
“In 2012, we started seeing the invasion of tank farm activities in the community and that has caused us a lot of problems. We have other eight villages across the water and we just have one 7 meter road that leads to the tank farm and the community.
“Trucks come in hundreds and in chains and we can remember the fire incident in Onitsha, only one truck had multiplied effect and people died. These trucks ranging from 33,000 to 78,000 metric tonnes; the issue before us is this, who have given this approval in a residential area.
“The last incident that happened claimed lives, it is a very bad situation and we will not accept. It is our duty to live and when injustice become the law, then resistance becomes inevitable, these tank farms must be relocated,” he said.
On his part, Adebowale Olujimi, Chairman, Ijegun-Egba Tank-farm Owners and Operators Association told the Committee that approval was given by all relevant Federal and State authorities before the Tank Farms were installed in 2013.
According to him, the association in 2013 spent N13, million on access road rehabilitation and N350 million on road construction to the Tank Farm while in 2014, another N15 million was spent on Marwa road rehabilitations and in 2017 another N72.5 million was spent on road rehabilitation.
He also said between 2015 and 2016, chipet road with drainage was constructed at the cost of N60 million, adding that the association had spent N2 billion tackling pressing infrastructural deficit in the area including fire station.
Olujimi noted that with over N2 trillion in asset currently servicing loans from various institutions, a relocation of the Tank Farms will be a great shock to investors and financial institutions, saying 25 per cent of national petroleum product comes from the Tank Farms in the area.
In his submissions, Bashir Sadiq Assistant Director, Products Depots and Jetties, Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) said was not the sole responsibility of DPR to issue approvals as many other agencies grant approval Tank Farms.
“Other agencies like the Nigerian Port Authority (NPA) National Inland Waterways Authority, Town Planning Authority, Federal Ministry of Works and Housing, Nigeria Police and Federal and State Fire Services are also involved
“We are the final authority that grants approvals to contact a depot because it is a petroleum product facility.It is after we have congregated all these approvals that we finally grant that approval; so it is not that DPR just sits down and says go and build,” Sadiq added.
