President Muhammadu Buhari has ccondoled with the Kogi State government and the families of the victims of the tragic tanker explosion which claimed the lives of 23 people on Wednesday.
Buhari, in a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, on Wednesday stated that the death of the 23 people, as confirmed by the Federal Road Safety Corps, “represents another disturbing and saddening incident in the litany of tragedies that have befallen our country.”
Among those who died in the petroleum tanker explosion on Wednesday in Lokoja, the Kogi State Capital where travellers, school children, bystanders and students of Kogi State Polytechnic.
Reacting further to the incident, President Buhari said that “I am seriously worried about the frequency of these unfortunate and large scale tragedies in the country which cause needless deaths.”
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According to him, “these frequent incidents that result in loss of lives and property are a national scandal caused by our indifference to safety standards.”
He explained that “many accidents are preventable if proper proactive and precautionary measures are put in place or properly observed as routine policies.”
The President regretted that “ours is a country where we move on whenever tragedies occur instead of taking preventive safety measures to forestall future calamities.”
Accorsing to statement, the President called on the county’s transport authorities, traffic and road management agencies as well as law enforcement officials to sit up and enforce safety standards with more seriousness, adding that “refusal to do the right thing can cause potential tragic problems that harm innocent people.”
According to him, “Nigeria is not having a shortage of laws and regulations, but our problem is lack of zeal to enforce those laws and regulations for the sake of public safety.”