12 killed in Nigeria gasoline tanker explosion, police say

By Chinedu Asadu

At least 12 people were killed when a gasoline tanker crashed on a major road and then exploded in Nigeria’s northcentral Kogi State, police said Friday.

The tanker had a brake failure along a major road in the Ofu council area on Thursday night when it collided with a vehicle obstructing the highway, causing a fireball, a police spokesman told The Associated Press.

The vehicle “crushed cars on the way” and “12 people were killed” — all burnt to death, said William Ovye Aya with the Kogi police command.

Bisi Kazeem with Nigeria’s Federal Road Safety Corps said 18 people were involved in the crash. Seven sustained “various degrees of injuries while the remaining 11 were burnt beyond recognition” at the scene, Kazeem said in a statement.

The road has been cordoned off and road safety workers are working to identify the victims, Kazeem said.

Such crashes are common along most major roads in Nigeria, with new measures introduced by the country’s road safety corps failing to curb their occurrence. Kogi is a known hot spot with more than 10 people killed in a similar crash in September.

Authorities in Kogi are investigating the latest crash, Kingsley Fanwo, the state commissioner for information, told the AP.

“As a state government, we have always been harping on this issue of road safety. It is becoming one occurrence too many,” Fanwo said.