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NOA DG blames Niger tanker tragedy on negligence, moral decay
According to Lanre Issa-Onilu, Director-General of the National Orientation Agency (NOA), the recent tanker disaster in Niger State resulted from carelessness and deteriorating societal standards.
During a Thursday appearance on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily, the agency chief called the tragedy “frustrating” and preventable.
“It’s very frustrating, but we saw it coming. After the Dikko explosion (earlier this year) in Niger State, the President gave us a marching order to conduct a nationwide sensitisation,” Issa-Onilu said.
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The agency had reached out to various groups including traditional rulers, faith-based leaders, law enforcement, and young people. However, Issa-Onilu attributed the continued disasters to inadequate community governance.
“Our findings show that sensitisation alone won’t solve this problem. People are aware of the danger but ignore it.
“It’s the failure of leadership at the community level. This particular incident involved the entire community,” he said.
The NOA director mentioned discussions with the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) regarding enhanced safety protocols.
Downstream petroleum regulators are currently formulating updated rules to address such emergencies, he added.
Issa-Onilu strongly criticized the practice of collecting fuel from overturned tankers, labeling it both illegal and ethically wrong.
“Why do you go near a spillage when you know the risk involved?” he asked, noting that “It happened in Dikko recently; it shouldn’t happen again.”
The behavior demonstrates society’s moral decline, he argued, emphasizing that leaked petroleum remains the property of its owner, making its appropriation tantamount to stealing.
“Our values have eroded over the decades. Parents should ask their children why they want to take what belongs to another person.
“Even that fuel belongs to someone’s investment. The act of taking it is theft and prosecutable,” Issa-Onilu said.
He stressed that community intervention during such incidents should aim to preserve the owner’s property rather than exploit the situation.
“It’s beyond a fallen tanker. It’s a whole-of-society issue tied to value orientation,” he added.
The Niger State tragedy in Essa community, Katcha Local Government Area, claimed 42 lives with more than 60 injured.
Tuesday, October 21, 2025, witnessed the disaster when the tanker capsized on the deteriorated Bida–Badeggi–Agaie Road and ignited as locals attempted to collect its contents.
The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) reported that casualties included nine men, 24 women, and nine children.
Various agencies including police, DSS, NSCDC, FRSC, and community volunteers arrived at the location.
Search efforts proceeded as some residents remained missing.
Local authorities pointed to the highway’s poor condition as a contributing factor.
They called on federal and state authorities to immediately repair the road to avert similar disasters.
Following Governor Umaru Bago’s instructions, a team headed by Special Adviser on Special Duties Murtala Bagana inspected the site and medical facilities.
Bagana announced the governor’s authorization of complimentary comprehensive treatment for all those affected.
The most critically wounded were transferred to National Hospital, Gwagwalada, and Federal Medical Centre, Bida, he confirmed.
Information Minister Mohammed Idris, in another statement, conveyed the Federal Government’s sympathies to Niger State residents following the disaster.
Despite continuous advisories, certain individuals persist in recovering fuel from crash sites, endangering themselves, he observed.
NEMA received instructions to assist with rescue operations and victim support, the minister stated.
Peter Obi, who ran for president under the Labour Party, voiced his sorrow regarding the event.
He said it was painful that “poverty continues to drive our people into situations where they must dangerously risk their lives to survive. No one has to die simply trying to live,” Obi stated.
A Rivers High Court sitting in Oyigbo Local Government Area has stepped into the escalating political crisis in the state, issuing an interim injunction that temporarily halts further action on the impeachment process against Governor Siminalayi Fubara and his deputy, Ngozi Nma-Odu.
In a ruling delivered in Port Harcourt, the court restrained the Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly, Martin Amaewhule, alongside thirty-two other defendants — including the Clerk of the House and the Chief Judge of Rivers State—from taking steps aimed at advancing the impeachment process.
Specifically, the order barred the Chief Judge, Justice Simeon Chibuzor-Amadi, from receiving, forwarding, considering, or acting on any request, resolution, or impeachment-related document from the Assembly for the purpose of constituting an investigative panel, pending the determination of the matter. The injunction is to subsist for seven days.
In the two suits—marked OYHC/7/CS/2026 and OYHC/6/CS/2026—the court also granted the claimants leave to serve the interim order and other originating processes on the first to the thirty-first defendants by pasting them at the gate of the Rivers State Assembly quarters.
The court also directed that the Chief Judge, listed as the 32nd defendant, be served through any staff of the judiciary at his chambers within the court premises.
Justice Fiberesima thereafter adjourned the matter to January 23, 2026, for hearing of the motion on notice, as the legal battle over the impeachment move shifts from the political arena to the courtroom.
On Friday, the Rivers State House of Assembly had called on the Chief Judge of the state to set up a panel to investigate the allegations of gross misconduct against Governor Fubara and his deputy.
The assembly members, who made the call through a unanimous vote, vowed to continue with the impeachment process.
The lawmakers had earlier addressed a press conference in Port Harcourt, where they accused Fubara of allegedly using blackmail.
Addressing journalists, the deputy speaker, Dumle Maol, claimed Fubara lacked the trust needed to address the crisis rocking the oil-rich state.
They accused the governor of infringing on the 1999 Constitution, saying the parliament was left with no other choice but to apply their legislative power by impeaching him from office.
The lawmakers also claimed the governor and his deputy had resorted to intimidating the parliament.
They, however, thanked President Bola Tinubu for wading into the crisis.
The members also called on the Speaker, Martin Amaewhule, to reconvene the House.
Their position came weeks after they initiated an impeachment process against Fubara and Odu. The lawmakers are accusing them of gross negligence, a move that has heightened political tension in the coastal state.
No amount of intervention or pleading will mitigate the case of Siminalayi Fubara at this stage regarding the determination to impeach him, members of the Rivers State House of Assembly, vowed on Friday, as they opened a new chapter in the ongoing onslaught against the state governor.
Against the backdrop of what appeared like a lull when they failed to sit on Thursday for the same purpose, the members on their return, hinged the blame to go on with the action on the alleged intransigence of Fubara to retrace his step.
For this reason, the called on the state Chief Judge to set up the panel of investigation to look into the allegations of gross misconduct levied against Fubara and his deputy, Ngozi Odu.
Conveying their decision which came in form of a unanimous vote, the assembly members, who vowed to continue with the impeachment process, stressed that no amount of intimidation, blackmail or intervention would stop them this time – the third in the impeachment approach, which was first initiated in November 2023.
Dumle Maol, Deputy Speaker, had earlier told reporters that Fubara lacked the trust needed to address the crisis rocking the oil-rich state, accusing him of multiple infringement on the 1999 Constitution, which left the house with no other choice but to apply their legislative power.
Accusing the governor and his deputy of resorting to intimidation of the parliament, including the dropping of the name of President Bola Tinubu, they thanked the President for wading into the crisis in order to find a solution, but regrated that his efforts were stalled by the same Fubara.
If Peter Obi had mobilised Nigerians against those who rigged him out of the presidential election in 2023, his mandate given to him by the electorate would have been intact and he would have been President today.
This was the contention of Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed, who ran with the former Governor of Anambra State, as vice-presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 elections, where Obi was the presidential candidate.
Datti-Ahmed, in an interview currently going viral on social media, told his hosts that anyone seeking to defeat President Bola Tinubu must not rely on the court process but resistance, using Nigerians as was done in the June 12, 1993 election saga against the military.
The outing on Nigeria Right Now, uploaded on YouTube on Thursday, quoted the politician, formerly Senator representing Kaduna Central at the National Assembly, as stating that he made this much clear to Obi, that the judiciary could not resolve the fundamental breaches of the constitution perpetrated by the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the last elections.
Hear him: “I told Peter Obi – Supreme Court cannot give you governor and give you presidency. For God’s sake, stand up and do something. The Nigerian Constitution was clearly breached.
“The Nigerian constitution was clearly breached; section 134 2b. It couldn’t be any clearer. Now, if it was June 12 people, and you breached not just the constitution but just one punctuation in their interest, I swear to God, nobody will sleep. They will take it.
“As much as I dislike the fact that they are using the Nigerian constitution, you must give it to them; they fight for their interest. They can organise rallies and can keep it up for three decades. And you are saying, ‘Let’s go to court; let’s go to court.’
“Whoever is going to defeat Tinubu must be ready to, I will use the word, ‘red eye’. You must show your red eyes because on that day that they are declaring the results, the people declaring fake results are criminals, and those who are stopping the declaration of fake results are good citizens. Whoever is going to defeat Tinubu must show red eyes… there’s no going to court.”
In the 2003 Anambra governorship election, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Chris Ngige of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) the winner, but Obi, candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), challenged the result and was later affirmed governor by the court of appeal in March 2006.
Similarly, in 2023, Obi challenged Tinubu’s victory, the APC presidential candidate, but his appeal was dismissed up to the supreme court level.
Court halts move to impeach Fubara *Orders CJ to tarry on panel
Impeachment: Do your job, Rivers assembly tells CJ *Insist Fubara must go
Rigging: I warned Obi that judicial option in 2023 won’t work – Datti
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