Agip pipeline explosion victims’ families accuse company of neglect

The families of victims of the pipeline explosion at the Agip Oilfield in Azuzuama community in Bayelsa State have accused the company of neglect.

They accused the Nigerian Agip Oil Company, operators of the oilfield, of being insensitive to their plights.

The News Agency of Nigeria reported that a pipeline explosion in the Southern Ijaw Local Government community on July 9, 2015 left 14 people dead.

A regulatory official of the Bayelsa State Ministry of Environment and National Oil Spills Detection and Response Agency was among the dead victims.

NAN said that officials of NAOC, representatives of the host community and the Bayelsa State Ministry of Environment were investigating the cause of an oil spill in the area when the blast occurred.

The Director-General of NOSDRA, Dr. Peter Idabor, had bemoaned the poor safety procedures at Agip’s oilfields which resulted in the death of its worker and an official of the ministry.

“It is a painful experience to us in NOSDRA. We have informed the families of the affected employees who hailed from Enugu State.

“We are talking with the Bayelsa State Government that also lost an employee from its Ministry of Environment.

“This incident shows the kind of risks and hazards that our officers are constantly exposed to in the discharge of our mandate at oilfields, amidst daunting challenges and limitations,” Idabor said.

Some of the family members of the victims of the blast said that they were still feeling the pains of the loss.

They blamed Agip for neglecting the dependants of the victims.

Mr. Clinton Italia, a relative of one of the victims, told NAN on Wednesday that all that the family got was an N800,000 burial assistance and N7.4m interim palliative.

“Life has been difficult and painful for the families of the victims at Azuzuama.

“Apart from the burial assistance and the sum of N7.4m, nothing has been done to the oilfield to forestall future repetition of the accident.

“The dependants of the deceased feel abandoned as Agip has yet to pay the main compensation.

“We have waited for the compensation and other promises they made to no avail and we are looking at ways of taking up the case with them,’’ Italia said.

Mr. Karibi MacDonald, the spokesman for the bereaved families, also said in Yenagoa that Agip had neither shown remorse nor commiserated with the families of the victims.

“It is very unfortunate that Agip is so insensitive to the needless death of 14 Nigerians due to the poor safety records in their oilfields.

“There has been no contact with us – the relatives of late staff of the Bayelsa State environment ministry.

“The stance of Agip, since this incident occurred, has been regrettable.

“They have not bothered to contact us even during the burial of the victims. When my own brother was buried, we did not see Agip.

“It is very sad that a foreign company can be this arrogant, be shying away from its liability and could not commiserate with the bereaved families.”

However, Eni, the Italian Energy firm and the parent company of NAOC, in a reaction to the claims of neglect, said in a brief email response that its Nigerian operations had assisted 12 families of the victims of the blast.

Reacting, the Media Relations Manager of Agip, Mr. Filipo Cotalini, was however silent on the allegations of unsafe oilfield practices, which reportedly resulted in the death of 20 people within one year of the firm’s oil block operation in Bayelsa.

“Twelve out of 14 families have received support from NAOC.

“For the remaining two families, the process is in progress and will be completed very soon,” Eni stated.

Police Compensates 17 Families Of Dead Officers With N1.9m

Bauchi State Command of the Nigerian Police,  has presented One Million, Nine Hundred Naira (N1, 900, 000) Cheques to 17 next-of-kin and families of officers and men of the command who died  while in active service.

The Bauchi State Commissioner of Police,  Halliru Gwandu, stated this during a brief ceremony at the command’s headquarters in the state on Tuesday.

Gwandu said  the presentation of the cheques was in compliance with the directive of the Inspector General of Police, that the welfare insurance package be released immediately to the families of the deceased.

Read More:

http://leadership.ng/news/546611/police-compensate-17-families-of-dead-officers-with-n1-9m

52 Die In Mexico Prison Riot, As Families Rush Out To See If Relatives Are Alive

A battle between rival groups at a prison near Monterrey in northern Mexico has left 52 inmates dead. Nuevo Leon state Governor Jaime Rodriguez said 12 other people were injured in Topo Chico jail after prisoners fought with “sharp weapons, bats and sticks”.

A fire was also started in a storage room. Officials say the situation is under control and no inmates escaped.

Crowds of relatives outside the jail blocked roads, demanding information. Some threw sticks and
rocks and tried to pull the prison gate open as riot police blocked their way. The incident comes just days before Pope Francis is due to visit a prison in the northern city of Ciudad Juarez, an area notorious for violence between drugs cartels.

Senate Wants Families Of Abuja Bomb Victims Compensated

The Senate on Tuesday, condemned Friday’s bomb attacks in Kuje and Nyanya areas of the Federal Capital Territory.

This followed a motion by the Minority Whip, Philip Aduda (PDP, FCT), who said that the attacks were fresh calls for increased security consciousness and equipment of the military.

The upper chamber, which observed a minute silence for those who lost their lives in the attacks, urged the Federal Government to compensate the families of the dead and cater for the injured.

It also urged relevant security agencies to increase their intelligence gathering and embrace new technologies of combating terrorism, including bomb detection.

Read More: premiumtimesng

Abuja Bombings: National Hospital Allegedly Refuses To Release Corpses To Families

National Hospital, Abuja, yesterday refused to release corpses of victims of Friday’s twin bomb explosions to their families.

The hospital said it would hold on to the corpses until police concluded their investigation into the identity of the bodies.

Head of Communications at the National Hospital, Dr Tayo Haastrup, said management would make sure that police did their work and that the corpses really belonged to the relations who claimed them. He said:

“For the 12 corpses, we need to involve the police in terms of identification as we can’t release them to just anybody.

“It is more or less a coroner case which will have to involve the police. We have reported it to the police and they are also around to make sure they do their normal work and thereafter, the corpses will be released to relations of the victims.”

Haastrup further explained that even though some relations have identified some of the victims, the hospital had not released any of the corpses.

Read More: nationalmirroronline

Saudi To Give Families Of Dead Pilgrims N70m Compensation Each & More

Families of the six Nigerian pilgrims who died in the last Friday’s crane collapse in Saudi Arabia’s grand Mosque will get N70 million each.

They will also be entitled to two Hajj slots each next year to be fully paid for by the Saudi government.

The custodian of the two Holy Mosques, King Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud on Tuesday ordered that top officials of the Saudi Bin Ladin Group be banned from traveling outside the kingdom after the probe of the incident partially blamed the construction company for the crane crash.

The Saudi authority announced that families of each of the 111 people who died in the accident will be paid a compensation of  one million Saudi Riyals.

Credit: thenationonlineng

Toddler Dies After Eating Poisoned Rice In Lagos

There was confusion in the Ijora Badia area of Lagos State when a two-year-old boy, Ibrahim, died after eating a plate of rice suspected to have been poisoned.

The food was prepared by his mother, Fatimoh Azeez. Fatimoh, however, said the food was eaten by other members of her family who were not hurt, adding that she suspected that one of her sisters-in-law, Fatimoh Rasaki, who had visited her on the day of the incident, had a hand in the death of the child.

Fatimoh Azeez used to visit her boyfriend, Isa, regularly in his parents’ apartment on Olajide Street
in the Ijora community. She was said to have become pregnant for him and was later delivered of the boy.

The lovebirds were reportedly cohabiting in the house when Fatimoh’s parents took her and the baby away to their house on Akosile Street.

Isa was reportedly allowed to visit both mother and child.

On one of such visits, Isa had a disagreement with his mother-in-law, which escalated into a fight with his girlfriend. Fatimoh Azeez’s family reportedly stopped him from visiting the child.

His sisters, Fatimoh Rasaki and Latifah Musbau, both married with children, were said to be visiting Fatimoh Azeez’s family on the fateful Sunday to mediate in the couple’s dispute, when the child died.

Fatimoh, in her statement to the police, said she was washing some clothes at the back of the house when she saw Rasaki spoon-feeding her child, which made her upset because she feared he could be poisoned. She said:

 “After I gave birth to my child, my husband’s people started maltreating me and sent me out of the house. I decided to stay with my parents.
“On August 16, around 11am, I was washing clothes when I saw my two sisters-in-law coming into the house to meet my parents. I saw as Fatimoh (Rasaki) carried my child and began to feed him with rice. I quickly rushed there and grabbed him from her and strapped him to my back.

After some time, I put him on the bed. Suddenly, he started shaking uncontrollably. I rushed him to a hospital, where the doctor said he had died. I was the one who prepared the rice and it was eaten by all members of my family.”

PUNCH Metro learnt that the two sisters-in-law, upon hearing the news, rushed to the house.

They were said to have been arrested by the policemen from the Ijora Badia division, before the case was transferred to the State Department of Criminal Investigation, Yaba.

Musbau, a tailor, however, denied having anything to do with the death of the child.

She said the visit was at the instance of their late father, who pleaded with them to resolve the dispute between the two families. She said:

 “It was when Fatimoh became pregnant that we knew she and Isa had been dating. She stayed with my mother and gave birth to the child, before her parents took her away.

After that, Isa started going to visit the boy. But one day, he had a disagreement with his mother-in-law. His girlfriend also started harassing him anywhere she spotted him. We warned him to stop visiting them. And he stopped.”

She said their father, who had been ill, appealed to them on his death bed to make peace with Fatimoh’s parents and bring the child back home.

Rasaki told PUNCH Metro that they decided to go for a truce visitation on the fateful Sunday.

She continued:

“When we arrived at Fatimoh’s parents’ house, it was only her mother that was around. We also saw three kids eating rice in different plates. We did not know which of them Ibrahim was. Her mother started abusing us, saying she would deal with us for all we made her daughter go through.

She was still talking when her daughter suddenly barged into the room, carried the child and strapped her to her back. She then stormed out of the room. Later, her father arrived and we broke the news of our father’s death to him. He condoled with us and said the dispute would soon be settled.”

She said later, Fatimoh’s mother came and broke the news of the child’s death to them.

“She said the boy had died and left the house without saying another word. We all rushed to their house and saw the corpse of the boy. It was while condoling with the family that the police came and arrested us,” she added.

A police source said the police were investigating a possible case of food poisoning.

“It is still not clear what killed the child. But we are suspecting food poisoning. The remaining food eaten by the boy has already been packed for a test and we are awaiting the autopsy report. Once there is a problem with the food, the women will have a case to answer,” he said.

The Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Patricia Amadin, when contacted on the incident, promised to get back. But she had yet to do so as of the time of filing this report.

Peter Okoye Expresses His Opinion On Emmanuel Adebayor’s Family Issues

Yesterday, the story of how the Spurs’ footballer Emmanuel Adebayor took to his Facebook page to talk disparagingly about his family travails went viral. While most people felt disturbed by that story, Peter Okoye of Psquare thinks Adebayor was very brave in telling his story.

Read the post he just made on his instagram page below….