Security beefed up in Enugu after failed attack at Pinnacle Oil station

From Geoffrey Anyanwu, Enugu

Security has been beefed up in Enugu state following the failed attempt on Tuesday night by hoodlums to set ablaze the Pinnacle Oil and Gas filling station at Chime Avenue, New Haven Enugu.

Already the Police operatives, soldiers, and men of the secret services have taken over strategic points in and around the filling station and around the Enugu metropolis while police on mufti but fully armed operating with non-branded vehicles are moving around the town and roads apparently on surveillance.

However, the heavy presence of security operatives is not preventing the filling station from doing its business as they are carrying on with their selling of fuel to customers.

But for the heavy presence of security agents and the partial destruction of one of the dispensing meters/nuzzles, a visitor or passerby may not know that something happened at the station, as it is fully intact and doing business.

Though Daily Sun could not get the manager of the station or any of the staff to narrate what happened, a neighbour and eyewitness said there was indeed an attempt to burn the station but what he attributed to God’s intervention saved the night.

The eyewitness and owner of one of the numerous bars around said the gunmen came in two tricycles (Keke) to the filling station about after 8 pm, shot in the air many times, collected one nuzzle, poured fuel on the floor and put fire on it, causing great panic.

The eyewitness who pleaded anonymity said, “My dear, it was terrible last night, we all ran away. Myself, the people drinking here, we all ran away leaving everything even my meat scattered, and drinks poured, no one was thinking about that, we just wanted to be alive first.

“Those guys came with two Keke, they entered the filling station as they were still selling fuel then, around 8 or after 8 pm and started shooting guns, I feel they did not want to kill anybody. They took one of the nuzzles and released fuel on the ground and put fire on it. They continued shooting and later took off in their Keke.

“It was after they left when we returned back to our shops and joints, and the fire has been quenched that police and army started coming and moving about as usual.

“Some of the staff of the filling station sustained injuries while trying to run for their lives same as some people around and you know this area used to boom at that time of the night.

“So my dear we thank God because if not God that made them not go beyond this, had that filling station been set ablaze, all of this area will be razed. You can see how the houses are connected to each other. It also shows that siteing a filling station in a residential or densely populated place like this is not right.”