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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 manouvred 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.
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