Adewale Sanyaolu
The upsurge in petroleum product tanker accidents has become a source of worry to stakeholders in the downstream sector with the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), disclosing the country lost over N39 billion to tanker and trailer- related road crashes in 2018.
This was even as members of the Petroleum Tanker Drivers (PTD) branch of the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) blamed some of the incidents on the deplorable state of Nigerian roads.
According to FRSC, Nigeria lost about N7.157 billion to road accidents involving 116 petroleum product tankers in the first half of 2018.
The Corps Marshal, FRSC, Boboye Oyeyemi, revealed at a stakeholders’ meeting with tank farm operators, with theme “Safe Haulage Vehicle Operations in Nigeria’’ that a total of 650 tankers and trailers were involved in the crashes in 2018, with over 90 percent of the affected vehicles having been used for haulage transportation for over 30 years.
The revenue loss and its attendant effect on the economy, untimely and avoidable deaths happen to have led to series of intervention by stakeholders to reduce these carnages on our roads.
In separate capacity building initiatives, the industry regulator-Department of Petroleum Resources, Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN), PTD NUPENG in conjunction with FRSC recently organised capacity building workshops at address this menace on Nigerian roads.
At the end of the workshops, all parties pledged to work together to ensure that certain standards are maintained in a bid to have safer roads.
FRSC intervention
Oyeyemi said the introduction of safe-to-load programme in the distribution of major petroleum products was aimed at ensuring that only vehicles in good condition were allowed to transport both wet and dry cargoes on the roads.
He said the vehicles must also be driven by qualified and competent drivers to ensure safety on the roads.
“Haulage has become the most utilised way of inter-city movements of goods and services, while the country consumes an estimated 60 million litres of refined petroleum products per day,’’ he said.
He said the vehicles must also be driven by qualified and competent drivers to ensure safety on the roads.
The corps marshal added that FRSC officials deployed to tank farms across the country were also trained and retrained to ensure compliance with the standard by fleet operators.
He said the corps would conduct investigations on all fatal accidents involving trailers and tankers, with a view to unravelling the causes and proffering preventive measures to appropriate authorities.
Oyeyemi identified use of unlicensed motor boys as drivers, lack of lane discipline, indiscriminate parking along the major corridors, use of additional lights at night and non-usage of retro-reflective tapes to enhance visibility at night as some of the prevailing challenges.
The FRSC boss said periodic checks of haulage vehicles at loading points by the taskforce committee was critical to regularly ascertain the safety status and compliance level of vehicles.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Major Oil Marketers’ Association of Nigeria, Clement Isong, in his remarks, said safety was one of the main priorities in petroleum business.
Isong said all hands must be on deck to ensure that the safe-to-load programme was adhered to by the stakeholders. In his remarks, the Executive Secretary, National Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO), Aloga Ogbogo, said the safe-to-load programme initiated by the corps marshal would ensure sanity on the roads and the haulage sector generally.
He called for the review of weigh bridges to ensure that articulated vehicles were loaded according to their capabilities.
“The weigh bridges will address the issue of safe-to-load initiative, especially the wet cargoes.
And mostly, all the articulated vehicles drivers are not using glasses; does that mean they all have good eyesight? Using glasses does not mean you cannot drive.
At the same time, putting a good truck on a bad road can also damage such a truck within few years, other things being equal. Therefore, necessary things must be put in place to ensure that the safe-to-load programme is perfected,’’ he said.
NUPENG/PTD trains 2,500 drivers
But in an attempt to reduce accidents across the country, the PTD branch of NUPENG commenced a training programme for 2,500 fuel tanker drivers .
The National Chairman, PTD, Mr Salimon Oladiti, at the commencement of the annual training programme in Lagos, had said that the objective was to reduce to the barest minimum accidents involving tankers on the roads.
Oladiti, who was represented by the Training Committee Chairman, Mr Olujide Kilanko, commended the Federal Road Safety Corps and other traffic agencies for their support and collaboration at all times during the programme
“This has reduced the number of accidents involving tankers on Nigerian roads. Yet, more needs to be done; hence, we are carrying out continuous training of drivers.
I want to use this medium to commend the Federal Government for developing the infrastructure in Nigeria. I also appeal to President Muhammadu Buhari to fix the roads. Nigerian roads are in a deplorable condition and need urgent attention, especially now that the raining season is gradually coming to an end.”
The Chairman, Lagos Chapter of NUPENG, Mr Tayo Aboyeji, said the essence of the training was to reduce the number of accidents on the roads and educate the tanker drivers on safety tips.
Aboyeji said the training had, over the years, contributed to the reduction of road accidents of tankers on the road.
He said the state of many roads in the country was taking serious toll on their members, and was responsible for the occurrence of accidents.
He, however, said that the union was managing the situation not to affect the distribution of products to final destination despite the bad roads.
“As at today, there is no gridlock in Apapa, the committees set up by the Federal Government, in collaboration with NUPENG, has done a great job in addressing the problem in that area.” The Assistant Corps Marshal, Zonal Commanding Officer, Lagos/Ogun, FRSC, Mr Samuel Obayemi, said the agency was working on a database to capture all drivers loading from depots for effective monitoring.
“We are urging them to start engaging their members in rigorous traffic training so as to meet minimum safety standards concerning their vehicles. It is very important to train and retrain them, to enable them to follow the rules and regulations and to meet the road standards concerning their vehicles. We are here to give them safety tips on what is expected from them.
“We are creating a database for both tankers and drivers that will capture them from the depots to their final destinations. Our personnel will also be deployed to depots; with the database, it will be difficult for any driver that is disqualified at one depot to go and load at another depot.”
DPR introduces safety measures
The DPR at a recent Annual General Meeting (AGM) for stakeholders had advocated return to the era of 33,000 litres maximum capacity for tankers instead of the 45,000 litres currently being conveyed by majority of the trucks.
Acting Director, Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), Mr.Rufai Shakur, said the DPR was concerned about the frequency of tanker accidents across Nigeria, stressing that this could be as a result of the high volume of fuel being conveyed by the trucks.
According to him, apart from endangering lives and properties, over-laden tankers also endanger the lifespan of Nigerian roads.
Also at a separate industry event held in Lagos, last week, Shakur equally recommended that all petrol tankers should be fitted with valves that would prevent spillage in event of a rollover.
“Think of it, if we had that, the recent inferno at Onitsha, arising from spillage from a petroleum taker would not have happened.
The 2018 incident on Otedola Bridge and many other fire incidents consequent on truck rollover might also have been averted’’, Shakur said.
He said it was safer and more efficient to use rail and pipelines for transporting of petroleum products.
He noted that this was however being hampered by activities of vandals which needed to be tackled using modern technology.