By Joy Odor Reportcircle News
Lagos narrowly avoided another deadly headline on Monday when a fallen fuel tanker at Liverpool Bridge in Apapa drew a crowd not seeking safety, but petrol.
Within hours of the incident, the Director General of the National Orientation Agency (NOA), Mallam Lanre Issa-Onilu, broke official silence with a sharp condemnation, warning that fuel scooping has crossed the line from reckless behaviour to a national safety emergency that now demands legal consequences.
Issa-Onilu described the act as dangerous, irresponsible and unacceptable in any modern society, stressing that the danger extends far beyond those scooping fuel.
According to him, motorists, surrounding communities, emergency responders and critical public infrastructure are all placed in immediate jeopardy whenever crowds gather around fallen tankers.
“The risk is massive and entirely avoidable,” the NOA chief noted, adding that any perceived benefit from scooping fuel is insignificant compared with the scale of destruction that a single spark could unleash.
For years, the National Orientation Agency has invested in nationwide sensitization campaigns, repeatedly warning Nigerians about the dangers of fuel scooping and similar high-risk conduct.
Yet the Apapa scene, Issa-Onilu said, shows that behavioural change has stalled, despite relentless advocacy and value-reorientation efforts.
Some individuals, he lamented, continue to ignore warnings and past tragedies, choosing short-term gain over survival.
The NOA Director General was blunt in rejecting poverty as an excuse.
“This is not poverty,” he said.
“Poverty does not erase judgement or the instinct for self-preservation. What we are seeing is a conscious and reckless disregard for human life and public safety.”
By framing the issue this way, Issa-Onilu placed responsibility squarely on individual choice, not economic circumstance.
Nigeria’s roads, he recalled, are littered with the memories of tanker explosions triggered by fuel scooping incidents that have wiped out entire families and shocked the nation.
From highways to urban centres, hundreds of lives have been lost in infernos that were both predictable and preventable.
“These are not accidents,” he said. “They are repeated failures to learn.”
With public enlightenment reaching its limits, Issa-Onilu called on the National Assembly to urgently enact legislation that would criminalise fuel scooping from fallen tankers, backed by clear and deterrent penalties.
According to him, only a firm legal and enforcement framework can break the cycle of negligence and loss, ensuring that dangerous behaviour carries real consequences.
Issa-Onilu urged Nigerians to collectively reject practices that routinely end in mass casualties and national trauma, insisting that no hardship or momentary gain is worth a human life.
“Human life is sacred and priceless,” he said. “No situation and no excuse should justify conduct that places lives in imminent danger.”
As traffic returned to normal at Liverpool Bridge, the warning lingered: Nigeria has been lucky too many times. The next tanker may not forgive complacency.
