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By Oluseye Ojo
The Director-General, National Emergency Management Authority (NEMA), Mustapha Ahmed, yesterday, said at least 58 houses have so far been confirmed to be affected by Tuesday’s explosion at Dejo Oyelese Street, Adeyi Avenue, Old Bodija, Ibadan, the Oyo State capital.
He made the disclosure during his assessment visit to the scene of the incident.
Ahmed stated that President Bola Tinubu and NEMA have been worried since they got a report on the blast. He added that the actual number of the injured persons, houses affected and some other necessary things would be made public when the assessment, search and rescue efforts are completed.
He said: “About 58 houses are damaged, about three lives have been lost. We currently don’t know the number of people that are in hospital. We are working hand-in-hand with the state government to ascertain the whole situation. This is the EOC centre. So, reports are still coming in and people are still on site working. But most importantly, we cannot condone people going in there, it’s not acceptable.
“You do not talk about what you intend to do without having the report of what the assessment is. We need to verify and ascertain what exactly has happened, the magnitude and the extent. Definitely, NEMA will intervene. The Federal Government will come in. That is why we are here, we are awake, nobody has slept.
“Search and rescue is still ongoing, this is something that occurred last night and, as we speak, we are still on ground zero. That is why that place needs to be evacuated, so that people don’t step on other people, because search and rescue has not been concluded.”
Ahmed continued: “We have seen documents, personal belongings of the people there for now, we don’t know what exactly is there. The most disturbing thing is that these particular people with the explosives have been there for a very long period of time and how come people have been keeping that quantum of explosives over 10 years and nobody has seen anything?
“Regulatory bodies must all sit up, where we have people keeping piles of explosives in a residential area is not acceptable. Disaster management is everybody’s business, if you see something, say something. The regulatory bodies must ensure that nothing like this happens again.”
