Lonely
World of Kerosine Fire Victims
By Adetokunbo
Abiola
On
the evening of Jan 21, 2001 Christian Ekeluba,a motor cyclist,
turned his motor bike into the AP filling station at New Benin,
Benin City. After waiting for ten minutes his bike pulled up beside
the fuel pump and he bought ten litres of kerosine. Satisfied
with this, he whistled under his breathe as he manouvered his
bike through about six cars that parked in the station and then
rode home. He was not to know that the kerosine he bought would
irrevocably change his life. When he got home, as usual, the National
Electric Power Authority (NEPA) had switched off power at the
New Benin Area where he lived.So Christian gave the small gallon
of kerosine he bought to his wife to pour into the lantern so
they could have light in their one bedroom apartment.
Pushing the
four year old child that clung to her away, Mrs Ekeluba dutifully
poured the kerosine into the lantern and took out a stick of matches
from its box, struck it and held out its flickering flame against
the wick of the lantern. Instead of light, there was an explosion
of fire. No one in the room was spared the consequences. Before
Mrs Ekeluba could jump from the fire, it blazed through her right
hand. Her daughter, who was nearby, got to her feet and ran but
the fire reached out to her and burnt her at the back of her neck.
Chibuzor Ekeluba, the four year old boy, was too bemused to run.
The fire lashed
at him and burnt him from the top of his head to the bottom of
his feet. Christian Ekeluba did not know when he rushed the boy
out of the house for treatment at the Owen Clinic, Upper Mission
Road of New Benin.It was from here that his problem began. He
spent about one hundred thousand naira in the six weeks Chibuzor
was admitted at the Own Clinic. When he was referred to the Central
Hospital, Sapele Road for treatment, Christian had to provide
money for board, feeding and drugs for Chibuzor. When doctors
at Central Hospital referred him to the University of Benin Teaching
Hospital at Ugbowo, Chibuzor had to raise the hard cash alone
to pay the bills. Three years later, broke and his motor bike
sold in order to raise money to take care of his son, he is bitter:"Up
till now, the Edo State Government has not done anything for me."
While Christian Ekeluba made this declaration on March 7, 2004,
other people had the same conclusion. They are saying the government
led by Chief Lucky Igbinedion had done nothing for the kerosione
explosion victims.
Left
to take care of situation anyhow they deemed it fit, bread winners
have faced financial ruin in saving their children and wives from
the effects of the kerosine explosion, with most of the victims
still in pain and sorrow. Angry at the response to their plight,
some of them have formed themselves into a pressure group to fight
government indifference to their problem. On June 19, 2001, hundreds
of people in Benin City and its environs bought kerosine from
filling stations or from retailers who bought the product from
filling stations. The filling stations got the product from the
Nigerian National Petroleum Company depot in Benin City. When
the kerosine was poured into lamps the following and subsequent
days, and then lit up, explosions occurred. The explosion fire
burnt through the flesh of women and children, scouring out muscles
into bloody patches of scarred flesh, leaving faces, legs, stomachs
disfigured and rotten with stink within a few days : 200 people
died from the explosions, while over 1000 others were hospitalized.
Mrs Eki Igbinedion, wife of the Edo State Governor, said on visiting
the hospitals:"I feel so bad, that words are not enough to describe
what I have just seen. Its so sad to see many women and children
badly burnt." A week after the explosions donations started coming
in. Church organizations, civil society groups, and individuals
brought money, food and medical materials and presented them to
government which served as trustee for victims.
The Nigeria
National Petroleum Company, Standard Trust Bank, All States Trust
Bank, Union Bank, Delta State Government and others donated drugs
and food for the victims as well as cash for them.Officials of
the health ministry later said the money got trapped at the Savannah
Bank and victims ended up buying their own drugs. A few days after
the tragedy broke out, following accusations that it was responsible
for it, the NNPC set up a team to look into the situation. The
team found out through standard analysis of the kerosine that
it had a flash point of 27 degree centrigrade. The team also discovered
that this was within the flashpoint for petrol, which is between
25 to 30 degree centrigrade. However, the NNPC did not hold itself
responsible for the situation. Ndu Ughamadu, the Public Relations
Director of the company then said:"The petrol came from people
who vandalized NNPC pipelines, diluted it with kerosine, and sold
it to customers as kerosine." About two months later the Edo state
Government set up the Akomolafe Wilson Judicial Enquiry into the
kerosine fire issue. The panel was to determine the overt and
remote cause of the kerosine fire explosions. It was also to determine
who was at fault and so be responsible for paying compensation
to the victims of the tragedy.
Thirty six
months later, say kerosine victims, the result of the investigation
and the recommendations of the panel are not out, even though
the panel submitted its findings to government. Three months after
the Akomolafe Panel was set up, the House of Representative Committee
on Petroleum held a public sitting in Benin City. It took memos
from kerosine victims, civil society groups and government officials
. It summoned staff of the NNPC Benin Depot, whose negligence
many believed led to the killer kerosine problem, and questioned
them. It sat for two days. Kerosine fire victims say the result
of the committee's sitting has not been made public two and a
half years after. The abandonment of the kerosine victims to their
fate has made many of them to be very bitter. Beatrice Imafidon,
38, who lives at NIFOR, five kilometers away from Benin, is one
of them. She had bought the killer kerosine from a filling station
near NIFOR on January 22, 2001 and when she used it for her lamp
it exploded and burnt her right down from the breast to her navel.
"It would have been a different thing if I had gone to vandalize
a pipeline and got this," she says, "But here I am, a poor housewife,
who went to a licensed filling station to buy kerosine which I
thought was normal, getting burnt. I bought sorrow and tragedy
with my money."
The experience
of victims and their families has been that of financial ruin
and emotional collapse as a result of abandonment which came with
the crisis. "That Jan 21 2001, there had been a blackout,"says
Mr Johnson Owie, a father of a victim. "I sent my son, Osagbanka,
to buy 20 naira kerosine from a neighbour who works at the NNPC
Benin depot. My brother's daughter then struck the matches after
the kerosine came. It exploded. She threw the lantern on my son
who was lying on top of a well. That was when the problem started."
Since assistance came from nowhere he bore the brunt of the problem
alone "I had to borrow fifty thousand naira with an interest of
fifteen thousand naira per month so I could take care of my son.
I used the approval document of my house as a surety. I could
not pay the money lender. I lost the approval document to him.
Right now, I'm very confused." As if his son's tragedy was not
enough, another came as a direct result of his son's condition.
"As we were running around for my son my wife became worried.
She then developed hypertension over the issue. My problem became
compounded. I was running around for my son, I was running around
for my wife. I was spending money for my son and I was spending
money for my wife." Johnson Owie has six children, three of them
in schools.
When the double
tragedy occured, and he was spending money for his wife and son,
the remaining children were also affected. "I had no money to
continue to keep them in school so I withdrew them. Right now,
the three of them are at home because there is no money to sponsor
them to school. Conditions have become so bad that eating a meal
a day has become a problem." This is not the only problem victims
and their families go through. A number of them want their children
to be as they were before the tragedy occurred. Johnson noted
that the only way this is possible in Nigeria is through skin
grafting at the University of Benin teaching Hospital or at the
UCH, Ibadan. "We took our children to the University of Benin,"
Johnson says, "We noticed that all the children taken for skin
grafting did not survive. They all died. So I refused to take
my son there." The best option is to take the boy out of the country
for surgery and this will cost hundreds of thousands of naira,
which he cannot afford. Another issue that rankles victims and
their families is education. "My son cannot go to school because
his body is deformed," says one of the parents of the victims."He
cannot play with the other children in the street. He used to
attend Bethel Nursery and Primary School at Upper Mission Road
before the incident.When he came to resume school, the other children
did not accept him. Our children no longer fit in with others."
As a result, they have to stay at home. The Edo State Commissioner
for Health denied all the charges against the state government.
"We care for the victims," he insists. "Their money got trapped
at the Savannah Bank, we sourced for some other money and gave
some of them.
The Akomolafe
report is out. We have done everything we can do but a few of
them remain trouble makers." Three weeks ago, victims say, the
government seems to be doing a rethink as it sent feelers to the
Kerosine Fire Victims Association (KEVA), the radical arm ofthe
victims, for meeting with government to solve their problems.
But government rethink after three years might not assuage them.
"We want the government to publish those who donated money it
received on behalf of victims," says Tony Erha, coordinator of
LifeTag, am NGO which fights for victims. "If this is not done
the public will feel further donation will be embezzled as others
have been." The victims also want the government to publish the
Justice Akomolafe Wilson Judicial Panel report, which they say
greatly indicted the NNPC. If this happens, says Tony Erha, victims
will have a chance of getting compensation from the NNPC and also
be willing to meet with government for discussion. This, however,
is not all. Christian Ekeluba, apart from having his family scarred
by the fire explosionis also an executive member of KEVA, and
he wants some things done by government. "We are aggrieved and
we want all serious victims taken abroad for surgery because it
can't be successfully done in this country," he says. "We are
asking government that if the children who are victims are their
children, can they accept them like that? If the women are their
wives, can they accept them like that?" The victims would want
a few other things before they can cooperate with the government.
They want the committee set up by government to look into the
issue to be expanded to include victims, since they are directly
involved. Many want compensation from those responsible for the
killer kerosine and free education for all those children concerned.
"If they refuse our demands," says Christian, "We will go ahead
and take the fight to the whole world. We are ready to fight and
lose our last bloodas far as this issue is concerned." Back in
January 2001, Chief Dan Orhih, a politician,. when speaking on
the kerosine issue, said:"Honestly speaking, I am disappointed
with how this issue has been handled."
After three
years of badly scarred faces, arms and legs oozing stinking pus
a result of wounds left untreated due to poverty, a lot of the
victims have long come to similar conclusions.
