How owners, drivers manipulate fuel tankers’ capacity
Kayode Ekundayo, Nurudeen Oyewole, Abdullateef Aliyu & Risikat Ramoni, Lagos
The fuel tanker explosion on Thursday, June 20, 2018 on the Otedola Bridge in Lagos which claimed 12 lives and 54 cars, has drawn much-need public attention to the increasing rate of such accidents in the country.
The development is generating concern on the age and capacity of fuel tankers on the highways, drivers’ recklessness and the responsibility, or lack of it, of regulatory authorities, independent marketers and depot owners at oil depots on compliance with health, safety and environment regulations.
In 2016, a similar incident occurred at the Festac area of Lagos when at least 21 vehicles and four commercial motorcycles were burnt when a petrol tanker fell due to brake failure and spilled petrol on the Festac link bridge, which resulted in a fire that raged for over an hour.
In the same year, 10 people were burnt to death while six others sustained serious injuries when a petrol tanker went up in flames at the Felele area of Lokoja, Kogi State. Most of the victims, according to the Sector Commander of the Federal Road Safety Corps in the state, Mr Segun Martins, were passengers travelling in an 18-seater commercial bus.
Investigation by Daily Trust following the June 28 incident revealed that besides using very old vehicles to transport petroleum products over long distances, many owners and drivers of fuel tankers have been adjusting their trucks to load more products than their capacity.
The National President of Petroleum Tanker Drivers (PTD), a branch of the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), Akanni Oladiti, said greedy oil marketers fiddle with their trucks in order to maximize profit without caring about the threat to the lives of other road users.
“Fuel trucks are of different capacities. The normal ones are between 33,000 and 45,000-litre capacity. Any tank that exceeds that is abnormal. But we have some people who carry abnormally 75,000 and even 90,000 litres. We have told federal government officials what to do about that. We have regulators who if they say tankers should not load more than a certain capacity and follow up with stiff sanctions, there will be sanity in the system.
“The fabricators have equipment they use to the extent that if the truck falls, the product may not spill, but as you know, Nigeria is a country where we go for cheaper things and cut corners,” he said.
The former Lagos zonal chairman of the PTD, Nujeemdeen Korodo, corroborated Oladiti’s statement, saying some owners had been using trucks meant for 33,000 litres to carry 66,000 litres.
Korodo said some tankers being used in Nigeria are locally fabricated, while some are imported from Brazil and South Korea. Many owners, however, prefer the home fabrications as they are cheaper. Imported tankers could cost as high as N6 million, while with N4.5m one can get a locally-manufactured tanker.
A petroleum tanker builder at Sanyo, Ibadan, Oyo State, Mr Kasali Komolafe, said imported tankers could be expanded in Nigeria. Komolafe said the cost of expansion largely depends on the size of the tanker, and the expansion job could take two weeks.
“We do expand fuel tankers. It takes a maximum of two weeks to complete. I cannot give you any price until you bring the tanker here. But if you want us to do a new one for you, we can do it at a cheap price. For instance, a 33,000-litre tanker (without the truck head) costs just N1.1m to expand, while a 45,000 litre costs N1.4m only,” he said. Govt’s findings on recent explosion The Lagos State government disclosed that findings from its investigation on the fuel tanker explosion on the Otedola bridge confirmed manipulation of fuel tankers’ capacity by owners.
The Commissioner for Transportation, Mr Ladi Lawanson, on July 1, 2018, told journalists that its investigation on the truck proved that it was registered in Nasarawa LGA of Kano State and had changed ownership 13 times since purchase.
“It (the tanker) was manufactured in 1999 by Mack Trucks Inc. at its assembly plant in Winnsboro, United States. This truck was designed as a 14,959kg (approximately 15 tonnes) drilling rig with a low bed, but was converted in Nigeria from a drilling rig to a fuel tank carrier to carry 30 tonnes.
“From this preliminary investigation, the truck should not have been loaded to the weight of 30 tonnes, which is twice its pulling capacity,” Lawanson said.
At a stakeholders’ meeting with victims and relatives of persons affected by the explosion at the Government Secretariat, Alausa, Ikeja on July 24, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Transportation, Taiwo Salam, corroborated the commissioner’s assertion on the expansion.
Salam added that the government’s investigation had revealed the tanker owner’s identity and his address at 16, Lemawa Oto Road, GRA, Kano. He said efforts had been initiated by the state government in collaboration with the Kano State government to arrest him for prosecution.
Another top official of the ministry told Daily Trust that the government investigating team was able to detect the expansion through vehicle forensic technology deployed by the state government at its forensic centre.
The Lagos Sector Commander of the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), Mr Hyginus Omeje, also said during the forensic analysis of the Otedola explosion, the commission discovered the vehicle’s capacity was barely 15 tonnes but what it was conveying when it fell was about four times what it was built to carry.
The Medical Director of Plato Hospital, Sogunle, Lagos, Dr Abdul Lateef Owolabi, suggested that fuel tanker drivers should be subjected to constant medical tests.
“The test should include the one to determine if they have taken any intoxicants before driving. Some will even have sight challenge, yet will continue to drive both day and night. A comprehensive test to determine intoxicants in their system and on their mental health must be done for all tanker drivers and even commercial bus drivers to determine if they are fit to drive or not. Although some companies do it, it should be binding on all drivers so things can change.
“Some of the drivers suffer from one psychiatric issue or the other, which they may not even be aware of. Some of them suffer from depression, while some others have issues with sleep due to sleepless nights on the road.
“Then, many of them are on drugs, many can’t drive without the influence of drugs. When they are high, human lives mean nothing to them. They don’t value life, rather they value money. In order to meet up with their delivery so they can take the money, they drive recklessly. The way they drive, in my view, is not under normal circumstances,” Owolabi said.
Concerned with the spate of road traffic crashes involving tanker drivers and other related vehicles in the country, the federal government, through the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, shortly after the Otedola tanker accident, met with the committee on Federal Character and Inter-governmental Affairs; Chairman, Senate Committee on Land Transportation; Chairman, House Committee on Road Safety; Chairman, House Committee on Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA) and the Corps Marshal of the FRSC.
The meeting resolved, among others, that mandatory certification of all haulage vehicles be carried out twice in 12 calendar months, while importation of haulage vehicles exceeding 10 years from the date of manufacture would be stopped with effect from January 1, 2020. It further resolved that standard speed limiters should be installed on all haulage vehicles in Nigeria. Similarly, trucks without safety valves and the required number plates would henceforth, be stopped from loading.